Exodus 1:10–22

¹⁰“Come, let us ^adeal wisely with them, lest they multiply and it be ¹in the event of war, that they also join themselves to those who hate us and fight against us and ^bgo up from the land.”

¹¹So they appointed ^ataskmasters over them to afflict them with ^1bhard labors. And they built for Pharaoh ^cstorage cities, Pithom and ^dRaamses.

¹²But the more they afflicted them, ^athe more they multiplied and the more they ¹spread out, so that they were in dread of the sons of Israel.

¹³So the Egyptians brutally compelled the sons of Israel ^ato slave labor;

¹⁴and they made ^atheir lives bitter with ¹hard slave labor in mortar and bricks and in all kinds of slave labor in the field, all their slave labor which they brutally ²compelled them to do.

¹⁵Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom ¹was named Shiphrah and the other ²was named Puah;

¹⁶and he said, “When you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and see them upon the birthstool, ^aif it is a son, then you shall put him to death; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.”

¹⁷But the midwives ^1afeared God and ^bdid not do as the king of Egypt had spoken to them, but let the boys live.

¹⁸So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing, and let the boys live?”

¹⁹Then the midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can come to them.”

²⁰So ^aGod was good to the midwives, and ^bthe people multiplied and became very ¹mighty.

²¹Now it happened that because the midwives ^1afeared God, He ^bmade ²households for them.

²²And Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “^aEvery son who is born ¹you are to cast into ^bthe Nile, and every daughter you are to keep alive.”