Exodus 1:9-22

CLV(i) 9 He said to his people: Behold, the people of the sons of Israel are more numerous and staunch than we. 10 Grant attention! Let us show ourselves wise as to them, lest they increase and it come to be when someone proclaims war on us, and they are added, even they, to those hating us, that they fight against us and ascend from the land. 11 Hence they placed over them chiefs of labor conscriptions that they might humiliate them with their burdens. So they were building as bulwark cities for Pharaoh, Pithom and Raamses. 12 Yet just as they were humiliating them so they multiplied and so they breached forth. Hence the Egyptians were irritated in view of the sons of Israel. 13 So the Egyptians made the sons of Israel serve with rigor, 14 and they embittered their lives with hard service in clay and in bricks, and with all service in the field, in addition to all their service which they served among them with rigor. 15 Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives (of whom the name of the first one was Shiphrah, and the name of the second Puah. 16 and said: In your midwifery for the Hebrew women, when you see them on the bracing stones, if it is a son then you will put him to death, and if it is a daughter then she will live. 17 Yet the midwives feared the One, Elohim, and they did not act just as the king of Egypt had spoken to them; and they kept the boys alive. 18 Then the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them: For what reason did you do this thing and keep the boys alive? 19 Now the midwives said to Pharaoh: The Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women, for they are livelier. Ere the midwife comes to them, they have already borne. 20 Hence Elohim dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and were very staunch. 21 So it came to be because the midwives feared the One, Elohim, that He provided households for them. 22 Then Pharaoh instructed all his people, saying: Every son born to the Hebrews, into the waterway shall you fling him, yet every daughter you shall keep alive.