Exodus 1 - Simple English

1These are the names of the children of Israel who came into Egypt. Each man came with Jacob, and brought his household with him:

2Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,

3Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,

4Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.

5All the people who came from Jacob's own body were seventy in number. Joseph was in Egypt already.

6Then Joseph died, and all his brothers, and all that generation.

7But the children of Israel had many children. They increased greatly, and grew in number, and became very strong. The land was filled with them.

8Then a new king rose up over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.

9He said to his people, "Look, the people of the children of Israel are more than we are, and stronger."

10"Come, let us deal wisely with them. If we do not, they will grow still more in number. Then, if war breaks out, they may join our enemies and fight against us, and go up out of the land."

11So they set slave masters over them, to crush them with hard work. The Israelites built store cities for Pharaoh, Pithom and Raamses.

12But the more the Egyptians crushed them, the more they increased and grew. So the Egyptians were filled with dread because of the children of Israel.

13The Egyptians made the children of Israel work like slaves, without mercy.

14They made their lives bitter with hard slavery: work with mortar, and with brick, and every kind of work in the fields. In all their work the Egyptians drove them without mercy.

15The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives. One was named Shiphrah, and the other was named Puah.

16He said, "When you help the Hebrew women give birth, watch them on the birth stool. If the child is a son, then you shall kill him. But if it is a daughter, then she shall live."

17But the midwives feared God. They did not do what the king of Egypt commanded them. They let the boys live.

18So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, "Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?"

19The midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women. They are strong, and they give birth before the midwives come to them."

20So God was good to the midwives. And the people grew in number and became very strong.

21Because the midwives feared God, he gave them households of their own.

22Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, "Every son that is born you shall throw into the river, but every daughter you shall let live."