¢º EXODUS 1
Ãâ1:1 These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob,
each with his family:
Ãâ1:2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah;
Ãâ1:3 Issachar,
Zebulun and Benjamin;
Ãâ1:4 Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher.
Ãâ1:5 The
descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in
Egypt.
Ãâ1:6 Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation
died,
Ãâ1:7 but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became
exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them.
Ãâ1:8 Then a new
king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt.
Ãâ1:9 "Look," he
said to his people, "the Israelites have become much too numerous for
us.
Ãâ1:10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more
numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and
leave the country."
Ãâ1:11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them
with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for
Pharaoh.
Ãâ1:12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and
spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites
Ãâ1:13 and worked them
ruthlessly.
Ãâ1:14 They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and
mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the
Egyptians used them ruthlessly.
Ãâ1:15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew
midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah,
Ãâ1:16 "When you help the Hebrew
women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill
him; but if it is a girl, let her live."
Ãâ1:17 The midwives, however, feared
God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys
live.
Ãâ1:18 Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, "Why
have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?"
Ãâ1:19 The midwives
answered Pharaoh, "Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous
and give birth before the midwives arrive."
Ãâ1:20 So God was kind to the
midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous.
Ãâ1:21 And
because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
Ãâ1:22
Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: "Every boy that is born you must
throw into the Nile, but let every girl live."
NIV-02Exodus01.wma