Exodus 1
1
1These are the names of the Israelites who came to Egypt with Jacob along with their households: 2Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, 3Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, 4Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. 5The total number in Jacob’s family was seventy. Joseph was already in Egypt. 6Eventually, Joseph, his brothers, and everyone in his generation died. 7But the Israelites were fertile and became populous. They multiplied and grew dramatically, filling the whole land.
Israel is oppressed
8Now a new king came to power in Egypt who didn’t know Joseph. 9He said to his people, “The Israelite people are now larger in number and stronger than we are. 10Come on, let’s be smart and deal with them. Otherwise, they will only grow in number. And if war breaks out, they will join our enemies, fight against us, and then escape from the land.” 11As a result, the Egyptians put foremen of forced work gangs over the Israelites to harass them with hard work. They had to build storage cities named Pithom and Rameses for Pharaoh. 12But the more they were oppressed, the more they grew and spread, so much so that the Egyptians started to look at the Israelites with disgust and dread. 13So the Egyptians enslaved the Israelites. 14They made their lives miserable with hard labor, making mortar and bricks, doing field work, and by forcing them to do all kinds of other cruel work.
15The king of Egypt spoke to two Hebrew midwives named Shiphrah and Puah: 16“When you are helping the Hebrew women give birth and you see the baby being born, if it’s a boy, kill him. But if it’s a girl, you can let her live.” 17Now the two midwives respected God so they didn’t obey the Egyptian king’s order. Instead, they let the baby boys live.
18So the king of Egypt called the two midwives and said to them, “Why are you doing this? Why are you letting the baby boys live?”
19The two midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because Hebrew women aren’t like Egyptian women. They’re much stronger and give birth before any midwives can get to them.” 20So God treated the midwives well, and the people kept on multiplying and became very strong. 21And because the midwives respected God, God gave them households of their own.
22Then Pharaoh gave an order to all his people: “Throw every baby boy born to the Hebrews into the Nile River, but you can let all the girls live.”
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Exodus 1: CEB
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2011 Common English Bible. All rights reserved.
Exodus 1
1
CHAPTER 1
1These be the names of the sons of Israel, that entered into Egypt with Jacob; all entered with their households;
2Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah,
3Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,
4Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.
5Therefore all the souls of them that went out of the hip of Jacob were seventy and five. Forsooth Joseph was in Egypt;
6and when he was dead, and all his brethren, and all his kindred,
7the sons of Israel#1:7 The phrase ‘sons of Israel’ at times refers to the twelve sons of Jacob (whose name God changed to ‘Israel’), at times to only the Israelite men, and other times to all of the people of Israel, the twelve tribes of Israel, ‘the Israelites’. increased, and were multiplied as burgeoning, and they were made strong greatly, and filled the land.
8A new king, that knew not Joseph, rose [up] in the meantime on Egypt,
9and said to his people, Lo! the people of the sons of Israel is much, and stronger than we;
10come ye, wisely oppress we it, lest peradventure it be multiplied; and lest, if battle riseth against us, it be added to our enemies, and go out of the land, when we be overcome.
11And so he made masters of works sovereigns to them, that they should torment them with charges. And they made [the] cities of tabernacles, either of treasures, as it is in Hebrew, to Pharaoh, Pithom, and Raamses.
12And by how much they oppressed them, by so much they were multiplied, and increased the more.
13And the Egyptians hated the sons of Israel, and tormented, and scorned them;
14and they brought their life to bitterness, by hard works of clay and of tilestone, and by all servage, by which they were oppressed in the works of [the] earth.
15Forsooth the king of Egypt said to the midwives of Hebrews, of which one was called Shiphrah, [and] the tother Puah;
16and he commanded to them, When ye shall do the office of midwives to [the] Hebrew women, and the time of child-bearing shall come, if it is a knave child, slay ye him; if it is a woman child, keep ye it.
17But the midwives dreaded God, and did not by the commandment of the king of Egypt, but kept the knave children.
18To the which called to him, the king said, What is this thing that ye would do, that ye would keep the knave children?
19The which answered, Hebrew women be not as the women of Egypt, for they have knowing of the craft of midwifing, and childed before that we come to them.
20Therefore God did well to the midwives; and the people increased, and was comforted greatly.
21And for the midwives dreaded God, God builded them houses.
22Therefore Pharaoh commanded all his people, and said, Whatever thing of male kind is born to Hebrews, cast ye into the flood; whatever thing of women kind, keep ye.
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Wycliffe’s Bible with Modern Spelling ©2017
Wycliffe’s Apocrypha ©2013, 2015
Wycliffe’s Bible © 2012, 2015
Wycliffe’s New Testament ©2001, 2011
Wycliffe’s Old Testament ©2001, 2010