Southern Intro
1 Now these are the names
of the sons of Israel
that came to Egypt with Jacob,
every man and his household came.
2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah,
3 Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin,
4 Dan and Naphtali,
Gad and Asher,
5 So were all the souls,
that came from the loins of Jacob,
seventy souls,
and Joseph were in Egypt.
6 Then Joseph and all his brothers died,
and all the generation of him.
Slaughter of the Innocents
7 Now the sons of Israel
were fruitful, and abounded,
and multiplied, and
became very, very numerous,
and the land was filled with them.
8 Then a new king arose in Egypt,
who did not know Joseph,
9 and he said to his people,
"Behold,
the people of the sons of Israel
have multiplied,
and
are more numerous than us.
10 Let us be careful with them
lest
they multiply,
and
it happens that we encounter war,
and they join with our enemies,
and fight against us,
and go up out of the land."
11 So they set over them
princes of labor,
in order to afflict them
with their burdens.
12 And they built cities
of storehouses for Pharaoh,
Pithom and Ramses.
13 But the more they afflicted them,
the more they multiplied,
and the more they prospered.
And they worried
because of the sons of Israel.
So the Egyptians
enslaved the sons of Israel in cruelty.
14 And they made thier lives bitter
in severe slavery,
in morter and in brick,
and in all slavery of the field,
to all their slavery,
in which they enslaved them in cruelty.
15 Then the King of Egypt said
to the midwives of the Hebrews,
which the name of one was Shiprah,
and the name of another was Puah,
16 and he said to the midwives of the Hebrews,
"Watch now over the birthing stools.
If it is a son, then kill him.
But if it is a daughter, then let her live."
17 But the midwives feared God,
and they did not do
as the King of Egypt told them,
but kept the newborns alive.
18 Then the King of Egypt called the
midwives,
and said to them,
"Why have you done this thing,
and kept the newborns alive?"
19 But the midwives said
to Pharaoh,
"Because the Hebrews
are not like the women of Egypt,
for they are valiant,
before the midwives can come to them
they give birth."
20 So God was good to the midwives,
and the people
multiplied,
and
became very numerous.
And it was,
because the midwives feared God,
and he made households for them.
21 Then
Pharaoh [the King of Egypt]
commanded all his people, saying,
"Every son that is born
you shall cast into the canal,
but every daughter you shall let live."