1. Now these are the names of the sons of Israel, which came into 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 the people who came from the seed of Jacob were seventy people, but Joseph was in Egypt already.
6. Joseph died, as did all his brothers, and all that generation.
7. Nevertheless, the sons of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and became exceedingly mighty, so that the land was filled with them.
8. Now there rose up a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.
9. He said to his people, “Surely, the people of the sons of Israel are more numerous and powerful than we.
10. Come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass that when any war breaks out, they also join our enemies, and fight against us, and escape from the land.”
11. Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their labor. They built for Pharaoh storage cities: Pithom and Rameses.
12. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew so that as a result they abhorred the sons of Israel.
13. The Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor,
14. and they made their lives bitter with hard service—in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field, all their service in which they made them serve was with rigor.
15. The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah,