Exodus 1-2

Christian Standard Bible

Israel Oppressed in Egypt

1 These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob; each came with his family:^(A)

⁵ The total number of Jacob’s descendants^[a] was seventy;^[b](B) Joseph was already in Egypt.

⁶ Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation eventually died.^{(C) 7} But the Israelites were fruitful, increased rapidly, multiplied, and became extremely numerous^(D) so that the land was filled with them.

⁸ A new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. ⁹ He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and powerful than we are.^{(E) 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.”^{(F) 11} So the Egyptians assigned taskmasters over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor.^(G) They built Pithom and Rameses as supply cities^(H) for Pharaoh. ¹² But the more they oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread so that the Egyptians came to dread^[c] the Israelites. ¹³ They worked the Israelites ruthlessly^{(I) 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.^(J)

¹⁵ The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives—the first, whose name was Shiphrah, and the second, whose name was Puah— 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.” ¹⁷ The midwives, however, feared God^(K) and did not do as the king of Egypt had told them;^(L) they let the boys live. ¹⁸ So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this and let the boys live?”

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.”^(M)

²⁰ So God was good to the midwives,^(N) and the people multiplied and became very numerous. ²¹ Since the midwives feared God, he gave them families.^{(O) 22} Pharaoh then commanded all his people, “You must throw every son born to the Hebrews into the Nile, but let every daughter live.”^(P)

Moses’s Birth and Adoption

2 Now a man from the family of Levi married a Levite woman.^{(Q) 2} The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son; when she saw that he was beautiful,^[d] she hid him for three months.^{(R) 3} But when she could no longer hide him, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with asphalt and pitch. She placed the child in it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile. ⁴ Then his sister^(S) stood at a distance in order to see what would happen to him.

⁵ Pharaoh’s daughter went down to bathe at the Nile while her servant girls walked along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds, sent her slave girl, took it, ⁶ opened it, and saw him, the child—and there he was, a little boy, crying. She felt sorry for him and said, “This is one of the Hebrew boys.”

⁷ Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Should I go and call a Hebrew woman who is nursing to nurse the boy for you?”

⁸ “Go,” Pharaoh’s daughter told her. So the girl went and called the boy’s mother. ⁹ Then Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay your wages.” So the woman took the boy and nursed him. ¹⁰ When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses,^[e] “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

Moses in Midian

¹¹ Years later,^[f] after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people^[g] and observed their forced labor.^(T) He saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his people. ¹² Looking all around and seeing no one, he struck the Egyptian dead and hid him in the sand. ¹³ The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you attacking your neighbor?” ^[h]

¹⁴ “Who made you a commander and judge over us?” the man replied. “Are you planning to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?”

Then Moses became afraid and thought, “What I did is certainly known.”

¹⁵ When Pharaoh heard about this, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in the land of Midian,^(U) and sat down by a well.^(V)

¹⁶ Now the priest of Midian^(W) had seven daughters. They came to draw water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. ¹⁷ Then some shepherds arrived and drove them away, but Moses came to their rescue and watered their flock. ¹⁸ When they returned to their father Reuel,^[i](X) he asked, “Why have you come back so quickly today?”

¹⁹ They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.”

²⁰ “So where is he?” he asked his daughters. “Why then did you leave the man behind? Invite him to eat dinner.”

²¹ Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah^(Y) to Moses in marriage. ²² She gave birth to a son whom he named Gershom,^[j] for he said, “I have been a resident alien^(Z) in a foreign land.”

²³ After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned because of their difficult labor, they cried out,^(AA) and their cry for help because of the difficult labor ascended to God. ²⁴ God heard their groaning, and God remembered^(AB) his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.^{(AC) 25} God saw the Israelites, and God knew.^(AD)