Exodus 1:1-14

When Jacob went to Egypt, he took his sons, and each son took his own family with him. These are the names of the sons of Israel: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. There was a total of seventy people who were descendants of Jacob. Jacob’s son Joseph was already in Egypt. Some time later, Joseph and his brothers died, along with all the people who had lived at that same time. But the people of Israel had many children, and their number grew greatly. They became very strong, and the country of Egypt was filled with them. Then a new king began to rule Egypt, who did not know who Joseph was. This king said to his people, “Look! The people of Israel are too many and too strong for us to handle! If we don’t make plans against them, the number of their people will grow even more. Then if there is a war, they might join our enemies and fight us and escape from the country!” So the Egyptians made life hard for the Israelites. They put slave masters over them, who forced the Israelites to build the cities Pithom and Rameses as supply centers for the king. But the harder the Egyptians forced the Israelites to work, the more the Israelites grew in number and spread out. So the Egyptians became very afraid of them and demanded even more of them. They made their lives bitter. They forced the Israelites to work hard to make bricks and mortar and to do all kinds of work in the fields. The Egyptians were not merciful to them in all their painful work.