Exodus 1–2

ISRAEL OPPRESSED IN EGYPT

1These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob; each came with his family:^a

²Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah;

³Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin;

⁴Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher.

⁵The total number of Jacob’s descendants^A was seventy;^b Joseph was already in Egypt.

⁶Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation eventually died.^{c 7}But the Israelites were fruitful, increased rapidly, multiplied, and became extremely numerous^d so that the land was filled with them.

⁸A new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. ⁹He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and powerful than we are.^{e 10}Come, let’s deal shrewdly with them; otherwise they will multiply further, and when war breaks out, they will join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the country.”^{f 11}So the Egyptians assigned taskmasters over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor.^g They built Pithom and Rameses as supply cities^h for Pharaoh. ¹²But the more they oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread so that the Egyptians came to dread^C the Israelites. ¹³They worked the Israelites ruthlessly^{i 14}and made their lives bitter with difficult labor in brick and mortar and in all kinds of fieldwork. They ruthlessly imposed all this work on them.^j

¹⁵The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives—the first, whose name was Shiphrah, and the second, whose name was Puah—¹⁶“When you help the Hebrew women give birth, observe them as they deliver. If the child is a son, kill him, but if it’s a daughter, she may live.” ¹⁷The midwives, however, feared God^k and did not do as the king of Egypt had told them;^l they let the boys live. ¹⁸So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this and let the boys live?”

¹⁹The midwives said to Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can get to them.”^m

²⁰So God was good to the midwives,ⁿ and the people multiplied and became very numerous. ²¹Since the midwives feared God, he gave them families.^{o 22}Pharaoh then commanded all his people, “You must throw every son born to the Hebrews into the Nile, but let every daughter live.”^p

MOSES’S BIRTH AND ADOPTION

2Now a man from the family of Levi married a Levite woman.^{q 2}The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son; when she saw that he was beautiful,^D she hid him for three months.^{r 3}But when she could no longer hide him, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with asphalt and pitch. She placed the child in it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile. ⁴Then his sister^s stood at a distance in order to see what would happen to him.

⁵Pharaoh’s daughter went down to bathe at the Nile while her servant girls walked along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds, sent her slave girl, took it, ⁶opened it, and saw him, the child—and there he was, a little boy, crying. She felt sorry for him and said, “This is one of the Hebrew boys.”

⁷Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Should I go and call a Hebrew woman who is nursing to nurse the boy for you?”

⁸“Go,” Pharaoh’s daughter told her. So the girl went and called the boy’s mother. ⁹Then Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay your wages.” So the woman took the boy and nursed him. ¹⁰When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses,^A “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

MOSES IN MIDIAN

¹¹Years later,^B after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people^C and observed their forced labor.^t He saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his people. ¹²Looking all around and seeing no one, he struck the Egyptian dead and hid him in the sand. ¹³The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you attacking your neighbor?”^D

¹⁴“Who made you a commander and judge over us?” the man replied. “Are you planning to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?”

Then Moses became afraid and thought, “What I did is certainly known.” ¹⁵When Pharaoh heard about this, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in the land of Midian,^a and sat down by a well.^b

¹⁶Now the priest of Midian^c had seven daughters. They came to draw water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. ¹⁷Then some shepherds arrived and drove them away, but Moses came to their rescue and watered their flock. ¹⁸When they returned to their father Reuel,^d he asked, “Why have you come back so quickly today?”

¹⁹They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.”

²⁰“So where is he?” he asked his daughters. “Why then did you leave the man behind? Invite him to eat dinner.”

²¹Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah^e to Moses in marriage. ²²She gave birth to a son whom he named Gershom,^F for he said, “I have been a resident alien^f in a foreign land.”

²³After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned because of their difficult labor, and they cried out,^g and their cry for help because of the difficult labor ascended to God. ²⁴God heard their groaning, and God remembered^h his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.^{i 25}God saw the Israelites, and God knew.^j