13. They worked the Israelites ruthlessly
14. and made their lives bitter with difficult labor in brick and mortar and in all kinds of fieldwork. They ruthlessly imposed all this work on them.
15. Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah,
16. “When you help the Hebrew women give birth, observe them as they deliver. If the child is a son, kill him, but if it’s a daughter, she may live.”
17. The Hebrew midwives, however, feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live.
18. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this and let the boys live? ”
19. The midwives said to Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before a midwife can get to them.”