Exodus 1
The More They Crushed Them, the More They Grew
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The Proliferation of Israel
1:1These are the names of the sons of Israel who entered Egypt with Jacob their father; each came with his whole household:
1:2Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah;
1:3Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin;
1:4Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.
1:5Joseph was already in Egypt. All the souls descended from Jacob were seventy-five.
1:6Then Joseph died, and all his brothers, and all that generation.
1:7The sons of Israel grew and multiplied and became numerous, and grew very, very strong; the land multiplied them.
The Enslavement of Israel
1:8Another king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph.
1:9He said to his nation, “Look, the people of the sons of Israel are a great multitude and are stronger than we are.
1:10“Come then, let us deal craftily with them, lest they multiply and, whenever war comes upon us, join our adversaries, make war against us, and leave the land.”
1:11He set overseers of labor over them to afflict them with their work. They built fortified cities for Pharaoh: Pithom, Rameses, and On, which is the City of the Sun.
1:12But the more they humbled them, the more numerous they became, and they grew very, very strong. The Egyptians loathed the sons of Israel.
1:13The Egyptians oppressed the sons of Israel by force.
1:14They made their lives painful with hard labor in clay and brickmaking, and with all the work in the plains, in every task in which they enslaved them by force.
The Infanticide of Israel
1:15The king of the Egyptians spoke to the midwives of the Hebrews, one named Sepphora and the other Puah.
1:16He said, “When you assist the Hebrew women in childbirth and they are about to give birth, if it is a male child, kill him; but if it is a female child, preserve her.”
1:17But the midwives feared God. They did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded them, and they kept the boys alive.
1:18The king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this and kept the boys alive?”
1:19The midwives said to Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they give birth before the midwives come to them.” And they bore children.
1:20God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very strong.
1:21Because the midwives feared God, they established households for themselves.
1:22Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every male child born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the river, but every female child you shall keep alive.”
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Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · V1 · working draft awaiting specialist review.