10 Come, let us outsmart them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any milchamah, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.
11 Therefore they did set over them sarei missim (taskmasters) to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pitom and Raamses.
12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and spread out. And they were in dread because of the Bnei Yisroel.
13 And the Egyptians made the Bnei Yisroel to serve with rigor;
14 And they made their lives bitter with avodah kashah (hard bondage), in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of avodah in the sadeh; all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigor.
15 And Melech Mitzrayim spoke to the meyalledot HaIvriyyot (Hebrew midwives), of which the shem of the one was Shiphrah, and of the other Puah;
16 And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to HaIvriyyot (the Hebrew women) and see them upon the delivery stool; if it be a ben, then ye shall kill him; but if it be a bat, then she shall live.