Exodus 1:8-22 - Pharaoh Oppresses Israel

⁸ Then there rose up a new king in Egypt which knew not Joseph. ⁹ And he said unto his folk, "Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. ¹⁰ Come on, let us play wisely with them: lest they multiply, and then - if there chance any war - they join themselves unto our enemies and fight against us, and so get them out of the land." ¹¹ And he set taskmasters over them, to keep them under with burdens. And they built unto Pharaoh treasure cities: Pithom and Rameses. ¹² But the more they vexed them, the more they multiplied and grew: so that they abhorred the children of Israel. ¹³ And the Egyptians held the children of Israel in bondage without mercy, ¹⁴ and made their lives bitter unto them with cruel labour in clay and brick, and all manner work in the fields, and in all manner of service, which they caused them to work cruelly.

¹⁵ And the king of Egypt said unto the midwives of the Hebrews' women, of which the one's name was Shiphrah and the other Puah, ¹⁶ "When ye midwife the women of the Hebrews and see in the birth time that it is a boy, kill it. But if it be a maid, let it live." ¹⁷ Notwithstanding, the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them: but saved the men children. ¹⁸ Then the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said unto them, "Why have ye dealt on this manner and have saved the men children?"

¹⁹ And the midwives answered Pharaoh, that the Hebrews' women were not as the women of Egypt: but were sturdy women, and were delivered yer the midwives came at them.

²⁰ And God therefore dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty, ²¹ and - because the midwives feared God - he made them houses. ²² Then Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, "All the men children that are born, cast into the river; and save the maid children alive."