These are the children of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to his daughter Leah, and Jacob had these sixteen children by her.

And Joseph had Manasseh and Ephraim in the land of Egypt, by Asenath, the daughter of Poti-phera, priest of On.

All these were the children of Rachel whom Jacob had by her, fourteen persons.

You are to say, Your servants have been keepers of cattle from our early days up to now, like our fathers; in this way you will be able to have the land of Goshen for yourselves; because keepers of sheep are unclean in the eyes of the Egyptians.

Now there was no food to be had in all the land, so that all Egypt and Canaan were wasted from need of food.

Are we to come to destruction before your eyes, we and our land? take us and our land and give us bread; and we and our land will be servants to Pharaoh; and give us seed so that we may have life and the land may not become waste.

And as for the people, he made servants of them, town by town, from one end of Egypt to the other.

Only he did not take the land of the priests, for the priests had their food given them by Pharaoh, and having what Pharaoh gave them, they had no need to give up their land.

And when the grain is cut, you are to give a fifth part to Pharaoh, and four parts will be yours for seed and food, and for your families and your little ones.

And they said to him, Truly you have kept us from death; may we have grace in your eyes, and we will be Pharaoh's servants.

And said to me, Truly, I will make you fertile and give you increase and will make of you a great family of nations: and I will give this land to your seed after you to be their heritage for ever.

And now your two sons who came to birth in Egypt before I came to you here, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine, in the same way as Reuben and Simeon are.

And any other offspring which you have after them, will be yours, and will be named after their brothers in their heritage.

The angel who has been my saviour from all evil, send his blessing on these children: and let my name and the name of my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, be given to them; and let them become a great nation in the earth.

But his father would not, saying, I am doing it on purpose, my son; he will certainly become a nation and a great one; but his younger brother will be greater than he, and his seed will become a great family of nations.

So he gave them his blessing that day, saying, You will be the sign of blessing in Israel, for they will say, May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh; and he put Ephraim before Manasseh.

Then Israel said to Joseph, Now my death is near; but God will be with you, guiding you back to the land of your fathers.

And I have given you more than your brothers, even Shechem as your heritage, which I took from the Amorites with my sword and my bow.

But because you were uncontrolled, the first place will not be yours; for you went up to your father's bed, even his bride-bed, and made it unclean.

A curse on their passion for it was bitter; and on their wrath for it was cruel. I will let their heritage in Jacob be broken up, driving them from their places in Israel.

To you, Judah, will your brothers give praise: your hand will be on the neck of your haters; your father's sons will go down to the earth before you.

Judah is a young lion; like a lion full of meat you have become great, my son; now he takes his rest like a lion stretched out and like an old lion; by whom will his sleep be broken?

The rod of authority will not be taken from Judah, and he will not be without a law-giver, till he comes who has the right to it, and the peoples will put themselves under his rule.

His eyes will be dark with wine, and his teeth white with milk.

The resting-place of Zebulun will be by the sea, and he will be a harbour for ships; the edge of his land will be by Zidon.

Dan will be the judge of his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.

May Dan be a snake in the way, a horned snake by the road, biting the horse's foot so that the horseman has a fall.

He was troubled by the archers; they sent out their arrows against him, cruelly wounding him:

But their bows were broken by a strong one, and the cords of their arms were cut by the Strength of Jacob, by the name of the Stone of Israel:

Even by the God of your father, who will be your help, and by the Ruler of all, who will make you full with blessings from heaven on high, blessings of the deep stretched out under the earth, blessings of the breasts and of the fertile body:

In the rock in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre in the land of Canaan, which Abraham got from Ephron the Hittite, to be his resting-place.

And the forty days needed for making the body ready went by: and there was weeping for him among the Egyptians for seventy days.

Now after the death of their father, Joseph's brothers said to themselves, It may be that Joseph's heart will be turned against us, and he will give us punishment for all the evil which we did to him.

You are to say to Joseph, Let the wrongdoing of your brothers be overlooked, and the evil they did to you: now, if it is your pleasure, let the sin of the servants of your father's God have forgiveness. And at these words, Joseph was overcome with weeping.

Then Joseph said to his brothers, The time of my death has come; but God will keep you in mind and take you out of this land into the land which he gave by his oath to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.

Let us take care for fear that their numbers may become even greater, and if there is a war, they may be joined with those who are against us, and make an attack on us, and go up out of the land.

So they put overseers of forced work over them, in order to make their strength less by the weight of their work. And they made store-towns for Pharaoh, Pithom and Raamses.

But the more cruel they were to them, the more their number increased, till all the land was full of them. And the children of Israel were hated by the Egyptians.

And the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew women who gave help at the time of childbirth (the name of the one was Shiphrah and the name of the other Puah),

And Pharaoh gave orders to all his people, saying, Every son who comes to birth is to be put into the river, but every daughter may go on living.

And when she was no longer able to keep him secret, she made him a basket out of the stems of water-plants, pasting sticky earth over it to keep the water out; and placing the baby in it she put it among the plants by the edge of the Nile.

Now Pharaoh's daughter came down to the Nile to take a bath, while her women were walking by the riverside; and she saw the basket among the river-plants, and sent her servant-girl to get it.

Now when Pharaoh had news of this, he would have put Moses to death. But Moses went in flight from Pharaoh into the land of Midian: and he took his seat by a water-spring.

And the angel of the Lord was seen by him in a flame of fire coming out of a thorn-tree: and he saw that the tree was on fire, but it was not burned up.

And he said, Truly I will be with you; and this will be the sign to you that I have sent you: when you have taken the children of Israel out of Egypt, you will give worship to God on this mountain.

Go and get together the chiefs of the children of Israel, and say to them, The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has been seen by me, and has said, Truly I have taken up your cause, because of what is done to you in Egypt;

And the Lord said to Moses, Put out your hand and take it by the tail: (and he put out his hand and took a grip of it and it became a rod in his hand:)

So that they may be certain that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has been seen by you.

So go now, and I will be with your mouth, teaching you what to say.

And he said, O Lord, send, if you will, by the hand of anyone whom it seems good to you to send.

And the Lord was angry with Moses, and said, Is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? To my knowledge he is good at talking. And now he is coming out to you: and when he sees you he will be glad in his heart.

Let him give ear to your voice, and you will put my words in his mouth; and I will be with your mouth and with his, teaching you what you have to do.

And he will do the talking for you to the people: he will be to you as a mouth and you will be to him as God.

And they said, The God of the Hebrews has come to us: let us then go three days' journey into the waste land to make an offering to the Lord our God, so that he may not send death on us by disease or the sword.

Go yourselves and get dry stems wherever you are able; for your work is not to be any less.

Go now, get back to your work; no dry stems will be given to you, but you are to make the full number of bricks.

Then the responsible men of the children of Israel saw that they were purposing evil when they said, The number of bricks which you have to make every day will be no less than before.

And they said to them, May the Lord take note of you and be your judge; for you have given Pharaoh and his servants a bad opinion of us, putting a sword in their hands for our destruction.

And the Lord said to Moses, Now you will see what I am about to do to Pharaoh; for by a strong hand he will be forced to let them go, driving them out of his land because of my outstretched arm.

I let myself be seen by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God, the Ruler of all; but they had no knowledge of my name Yahweh.

Say then to the children of Israel, I am Yahweh, and I will take you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians, and make you safe from their power, and will make you free by the strength of my arm after great punishments.

And I will take you to be my people and I will be your God; and you will be certain that I am the Lord your God, who takes you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

And I will be your guide into the land which I made an oath to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it to you for your heritage: I am Yahweh.

And the Lord said to Moses, See I have made you a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother will be your prophet.

And I will make Pharaoh's heart hard, and my signs and wonders will be increased in the land of Egypt.

Go to Pharaoh in the morning; when he goes out to the water, you will be waiting for him by the edge of the Nile, with the rod which was turned into a snake in your hand;

So the Lord says, By this you may be certain that I am the Lord; see, by the touch of this rod in my hand the waters of the Nile will be turned to blood;

And the fish in the Nile will come to destruction, and the river will send up a bad smell, and the Egyptians will not be able, for disgust, to make use of the water of the Nile for drinking.

And the Lord said, Say to Aaron, Let the rod in your hand be stretched out over the waters of Egypt, and over the rivers and the streams and the pools, and over every stretch of water, so that they may be turned to blood; and there will be blood through all the land of Egypt, in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.

The Nile will be full of frogs, and they will come up into your house and into your bedrooms and on your bed, and into the houses of your servants and your people, and into your ovens and into your bread-basins.

And the Lord said to Moses, Say to Aaron, Let the rod in your hand be stretched out over the streams and the waterways and the pools, causing frogs to come up on the land of Egypt.

And Moses said, I will let you have the honour of saying when I am to make prayer for you and your servants and your people, that the frogs may be sent away from you and your houses, and be only in the Nile.

And he said, By tomorrow. And he said, Let it be as you say: so that you may see that there is no other like the Lord our God.

And the frogs will be gone from you and from your houses and from your servants and from your people and will be only in the Nile.

And the Lord said to Moses, Say to Aaron, Let your rod be stretched out over the dust of the earth so that it may become insects through all the land of Egypt.

For if you do not let my people go, see, I will send clouds of flies on you and on your servants and on your people and into their houses; and the houses of the Egyptians and the land where they are will be full of flies.

And at that time I will make a division between your land and the land of Goshen where my people are, and no flies will be there; so that you may see that I am the Lord over all the earth.

And I will put a division between my people and your people; tomorrow this sign will be seen.

And Moses said, It is not right to do so; for we make our offerings of that to which the Egyptians give worship; and if we do so before their eyes, certainly we will be stoned.

And Moses said, When I go out from you I will make prayer to the Lord that the cloud of flies may go away from Pharaoh and from his people and from his servants tomorrow: only let Pharaoh no longer by deceit keep back the people from making their offering to the Lord.

And the Lord did as Moses said, and took away the cloud of flies from Pharaoh and from his servants and from his people; not one was to be seen.

And the Lord will make a division between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt; there will be no loss of any of the cattle of Israel.

And the time was fixed by the Lord, and he said, Tomorrow the Lord will do this thing in the land.

And it will become small dust over all the land of Egypt, and will be a skin-disease bursting out in wounds on man and beast through all the land of Egypt.

But, for this very reason, I have kept you from destruction, to make clear to you my power, and so that my name may be honoured through all the earth.

And the Lord said to Moses, Now let your hand be stretched out to heaven so that there may be an ice-storm on all the land of Egypt, on man and on beast and on every plant of the field through all the land of Egypt.

And Moses said, When I am gone outside the town, my hands will be stretched out to the Lord; the thunders and the ice-storm will come to an end, so that you may see that the earth is the Lord's.

But as for you and your servants, I am certain that even now the fear of the Lord God will not be in your hearts.

And the flax and the barley were damaged, for the barley was almost ready to be cut and the flax was in flower.

And the heart of Pharaoh was hard, and he did not let the people go, as the Lord had said by the mouth of Moses.

And the Lord said to Moses, Go in to Pharaoh: for I have made his heart and the hearts of his servants hard, so that I may let my signs be seen among them:

And so that you may be able to give to your son and to your son's son the story of my wonders in Egypt, and the signs which I have done among them; so that you may see that I am the Lord.

Then Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh, and said to him, This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: How long will you be lifted up in your pride before me? let my people go so that they may give me worship.

And the face of the earth will be covered with them, so that you will not be able to see the earth: and they will be the destruction of everything which up to now has not been damaged, everything which was not crushed by the ice-storm, and every tree still living in your fields.

And your houses will be full of them, and the houses of your servants and of all the Egyptians; it will be worse than anything your fathers have seen or their fathers, from the day when they were living on the earth till this day. And so he went out from Pharaoh.

And Pharaoh's servants said to him, How long is this man to be the cause of evil to us? let the men go so that they may give worship to the Lord their God: are you not awake to Egypt's danger?

And he said to them, May the Lord be with you, if I will let you and your little ones go! take care, for your purpose clearly is evil.

And the Lord said to Moses, Let your hand be stretched out over the land of Egypt so that the locusts may come up on the land for the destruction of every green plant in the land, even everything untouched by the ice-storm.

And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, resting on every part of the land, in very great numbers; such an army of locusts had never been seen before, and never will be again.

For all the face of the earth was covered with them, so that the land was black; and every green plant and all the fruit of the trees which was untouched by the ice-storm they took for food: not one green thing, no plant or tree, was to be seen in all the land of Egypt.