Exodus 1:10–22

¹⁰Come, 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