¹⁰Come let us wisely oppress them, lest they multiply: and if any war shall rise against us, join with our enemies, and having overcome us, depart out of the land.

¹¹Therefore he set over them masters of the works, to afflict them with burdens: and they built for Pharoah cities of tabernacles, Phithom, and Ramesses.

¹²But the more they oppressed them, the more they were multiplied and increased.

¹³And the Egyptians hated the children of Israel, and afflicted them and mocked them:

¹⁴And they made their life bitter with hard works in clay and brick, and with all manner of service, wherewith they were overcharged in the works of the earth.

¹⁵And the king of Egypt spoke to the midwives of the Hebrews: of whom one was called Sephora, the other Phua,

¹⁶Commanding them: When you shall do the office of midwives to the Hebrew women, and the time of delivery is come: if it be a man child, kill it: if a woman, keep it alive.

¹⁷But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded, but saved the men children.

¹⁸And the king called for them and said: What is it that you meant to do, that you would save the men children?

¹⁹They answered: The Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women: for they themselves are skilful in the office of a midwife; and they are delivered before we come to them.

²⁰Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied and grew exceedingly strong.

²¹And because the midwives feared God, he built them houses.

²²Pharao therefore charged all his people, saying: Whatsoever shall be born of the male sex, ye shall cast into the river: whatsoever of the female, ye shall save alive.

Chapter 2

After this there went a man of the house of Levi; and took a wife of his own kindred.

²And she conceived, and bore a son: and seeing him a goodly child, hid him three months.

³And when she could hide him no longer, she took a basket made of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and pitch: and put the little babe therein, and laid him in the sedges by the river’s brink,

⁴His sister standing afar off, and taking notice what would be done.

⁵And behold the daughter of Pharao came down to wash herself in the river: and her maids walked by the river’s brink. And when she saw the basket in the sedges she sent one of her maids for it: and when it was brought,

⁶She opened it, and seeing within it an infant crying, having compassion on it, she said: This is one of the babes of the Hebrews.

⁷And the child’s sister said to her: Shall I go, and call to thee a Hebrew woman, to nurse the babe?

⁸She answered: Go. The maid went and called her mother.

⁹And Pharao’s daughter said to her: Take this child, and nurse him for me: I will give thee thy wages. The woman took and nursed the child: and when he was grown up, she delivered him to Pharao’s daughter.

¹⁰And she adopted him for a son, and called him Moses, saying: Because I took him out of the water.

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Exodus 1:17: But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live.

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