# Exodus 1 (New King James Version)
Israel's Suffering in Egypt

##### Chapter 1
###### 1 Now these _are_ the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt; each man and his household came with Jacob:  
###### 2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah;  
###### 3 Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin;  
###### 4 Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.  
###### 5 All those who were descendants of Jacob were seventy persons (for Joseph was in Egypt _already_).  
###### 6 And Joseph died, all his brothers, and all that generation.  
###### 7 But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.

###### 8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.  
###### 9 And he said to his people, "Look, the people of the children of Israel _are_ more and mightier than we;  
###### 10 come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and it happen, in the event of war, that they also join our enemies and fight against us, and _so_ go up out of the land."  
###### 11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Raamses.  
###### 12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were in dread of the children of Israel.  
###### 13 So the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor.  
###### 14 And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage--in mortar, in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. All their service in which they made them serve _was_ with rigor.

###### 15 Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one _was_ Shiphrah and the name of the other Puah;  
###### 16 and he said, "When you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women, and see _them_ on the birthstools, if it _is_ a son, then you shall kill him; but if it _is_ a daughter, then she shall live."  
###### 17 But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive.  
###### 18 So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, "Why have you done this thing, and saved the male children alive?"

###### 19 And the midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women _are_ not like the Egyptian women; for they _are_ lively and give birth before the midwives come to them."

###### 20 Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty.  
###### 21 And so it was, because the midwives feared God, that He provided households for them.

###### 22 So Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, "Every son who is born you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive."