11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labour, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.
12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites
13 and worked them ruthlessly.
14 They made their lives bitter with harsh labour in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labour, the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.
15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah,
16 ‘When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.’
17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.