23 lines
2.2 KiB
Markdown
23 lines
2.2 KiB
Markdown
# Chapter 1
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1 These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob; each came with his family:
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2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah;
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3 Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin;
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4 Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher.
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5 The total number of Jacob’s descendants was seventy; Joseph was already in Egypt.
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6 Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation eventually died.
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7 But the Israelites were fruitful, increased rapidly, multiplied, and became extremely numerous so that the land was filled with them.
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8 A new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt.
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9 He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and powerful than we are.
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10 Come, let’s deal shrewdly with them; otherwise they will multiply further, and when war breaks out, they will join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the country.”
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11 So the Egyptians assigned taskmasters over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor. They built Pithom and Rameses as supply cities for Pharaoh.
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12 But the more they oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.
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13 They worked the Israelites ruthlessly
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14 and made their lives bitter with difficult labor in brick and mortar and in all kinds of fieldwork. They ruthlessly imposed all this work on them.
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15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives—the first, whose name was Shiphrah, and the second, whose name was Puah—
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16 “When you help the Hebrew women give birth, observe them as they deliver. If the child is a son, kill him, but if it’s a daughter, she may live.”
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17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live.
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18 So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this and let the boys live?”
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19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can get to them.”
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20 So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very numerous.
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21 Since the midwives feared God, he gave them families.
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22 Pharaoh then commanded all his people, “You must throw every son born to the Hebrews into the Nile, but let every daughter live.” |