Exodus 1–2

¹These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household:^{* 2}Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, ³Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, ⁴Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. ⁵The total number of people born to Jacob was seventy. (Joseph was already in Egypt.)^{* 6}Then Joseph died, and all his brothers, and that whole generation.^{* 7}But the Israelites were fruitful and prolific; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.^*

The Israelites Are Oppressed

⁸Now a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph.^{* 9}He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we.^{* 10}Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” ¹¹Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh.^{* 12}But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. ¹³The Egyptians subjected the Israelites to hard servitude ¹⁴and made their lives bitter with hard servitude in mortar and bricks and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.^*

¹⁵The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, ¹⁶“When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.”^{* 17}But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live.^{* 18}So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this and allowed the boys to live?” ¹⁹The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” ²⁰So God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very strong.^{* 21}And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.^{* 22}Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews^a you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”^*

Birth and Youth of Moses

²Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman.^{* 2}The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months.^{* 3}When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. ⁴His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.^*

⁵The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. ⁶When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,” she said. ⁷Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” ⁸Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. ⁹Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed it. ¹⁰When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses,^b “because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”^*

Moses Flees to Midian

¹¹One day after Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and saw their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people.^{* 12}He looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. ¹³When he went out the next day, he saw two Hebrews fighting, and he said to the one who was in the wrong, “Why do you strike your fellow Hebrew?”^{* 14}He answered, “Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “Surely the thing is known.”^{* 15}When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses.

So Moses fled from Pharaoh. He settled in the land of Midian and sat down by a well.^{* 16}The priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came to draw water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. ¹⁷But some shepherds came and drove them away. Moses got up and came to their defense and watered their flock.^{* 18}When they returned to their father Reuel, he said, “How is it that you have come back so soon today?”^{* 19}They said, “An Egyptian helped us against the shepherds; he even drew water for us and watered the flock.” ²⁰He said to his daughters, “Where is he? Why did you leave the man? Invite him to share a meal.”^{* 21}Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah in marriage.^{* 22}She bore a son, and he named him Gershom,^c for he said, “I have been an alien residing in a foreign land.”^*

²³After a long time the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their slavery and cried out. Their cry for help rose up to God from their slavery.^{* 24}God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.^{* 25}God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them.^*