1 There was a man in the land of Mitsrayim of the seed of Lĕwi, whose name was Amram, son of Qehath, son of Lĕwi, son of Yisra’ĕl.
2 And this man went and took a wife, namely Yoḵeḇeḏ the daughter of Lĕwi his father’s sister, and she was one hundred and twenty-six years old, and he came to her.
3 And the woman conceived and bore a daughter, and she called her name Miryam, because in those days the Mitsrites had embittered the lives of the children of Yisra’ĕl.
4 And she conceived again and bore a son and she called his name Aharon, for in the days of her conception, Pharaoh began to spill the blood of the male children of Yisra’ĕl.
5 In those days Tsepho son of Eliphaz, son of Ĕsaw, sovereign of the Ḥittites died, and Yaneas reigned in his place.
6 And the time that Tsepho reigned over the children of the Ḥittites was fifty years, and he died and was buried in the city of Naḇna in the land of the Ḥittites.
7 And Yaneas, one of the mighty men of the children of the Ḥittites, reigned after him, and he reigned fifty years.
8 And it came to be after the death of the sovereign of the Ḥittites that Bil’am son of Be’or fled from the land of the Ḥittites, and he went and came to Mitsrayim to Pharaoh sovereign of Mitsrayim.
9 And Pharaoh received him with great honour, for he had heard of his wisdom, and he gave him presents and made him for a counsellor, and made him great.
10 And Bil’am dwelt in Mitsrayim, in honour with all the nobles of the sovereign, and the nobles exalted him, because they all coveted to learn his wisdom.
11 And in the hundred and thirtieth year of Yisra’ĕl’s going down to Mitsrayim, Pharaoh dreamed that he was sitting on his royal throne, and lifted up his eyes and saw an old man standing before him. And there were scales in the hands of the old man, such scales as are used by merchants.
12 And the old man took the scales and hung them before Pharaoh.
13 And the old man took all the elders of Mitsrayim and all its nobles and great men, and he tied them together and put them in one scale.
14 And he took a young goat and put it into the other scale, and the young goat outweighed them all.
15 And Pharaoh was astonished at this dreadful vision, why the young goat should outweigh them all, and Pharaoh awoke, and see, it was a dream.
16 And Pharaoh rose early in the morning and called all his servants and related to them the dream, and the men were greatly afraid.
17 And the sovereign said to all his wise men, “Please interpret the dream which I dreamed, that I may know it.”
18 And Bil’am son of Be’or answered the sovereign and said to him, “This means none else but a great evil that will spring up against Mitsrayim in the latter days.
19 “For a son will be born to Yisra’ĕl who will destroy all Mitsrayim and its inhabitants, and bring out the Yisra’ĕlites from Mitsrayim with a mighty hand.
20 “Now therefore, O sovereign, take counsel on this matter, that you may destroy the hope of the children of Yisra’ĕl and their expectation, before this evil rises against Mitsrayim.”
21 And the sovereign said to Bil’am, “And what shall we do to Yisra’ĕl? Only after a certain manner did we at first counsel against them and could not prevail over them.
22 “Now therefore also give advice against them by which we may prevail over them.”
23 And Bil’am answered the sovereign, saying, “Send now and call your two counsellors, and we will see what their advice is on this matter, and afterward your servant will speak.”
24 And the sovereign sent and called his two counsellors Re’uw’ĕl the Miḏyanite and Iyoḇ the Utsite, and they came and sat before the sovereign.
25 And the sovereign said to them, “Look, you have both heard the dream which I have dreamed, and the interpretation thereof; now therefore give counsel and know and see what is to be done to the children of Yisra’ĕl, whereby we may prevail over them, before their evil shall spring up against us.”
26 And Re’uw’ĕl the Miḏyanite answered the sovereign and said, “May the sovereign live, may the sovereign live forever.
27 “If it seems good to the sovereign, let him rest from the Iḇrim and leave them, and let him not stretch out his hand against them.
28 “For these are they whom 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 chose in days of old, and took as the lot of His inheritance from among all the nations of the earth and the sovereigns of the earth. And who is there that stretched his hand against them without punishment, of whom their Elohim was not avenged?
29 “Indeed you know that when Aḇraham went down to Mitsrayim, Pharaoh, the former sovereign of Mitsrayim, saw Sarah his wife, and took her for a wife, because Aḇraham said, ‘She is my sister.’ For he was afraid, lest the men of Mitsrayim should slay him because of his wife.
30 “And when the sovereign of Mitsrayim had taken Sarah then Elohim struck him and his household with heavy plagues, until he restored to Aḇraham his wife Sarah; then he was healed.
31 “And Elohim punished Aḇimeleḵ the Gerarite, sovereign of the Pelishtites, because of Sarah wife of Aḇraham, in stopping up every womb from man to beast.
32 “Then their Elohim came to Aḇimeleḵ in the dream by night and frightened him in order that he might restore to Aḇraham Sarah whom he had taken. And afterward all the people of Gerar were punished because of Sarah, and Aḇraham prayed to his Elohim for them, and He was entreated of him, and He healed them.
33 “And Aḇimeleḵ feared all this evil that came upon him and his people, and he returned to Aḇraham his wife Sarah, and gave her to him with many gifts.
34 “He also did so to Yitsḥaq when he had driven him from Gerar, and Elohim had done wonderfully to him, that all the water courses of Gerar were dried up, and their produce trees did not bring forth
35 until Aḇimeleḵ of Gerar, and Aḥuzzath one of his friends, and Piḵol the commander of his army, went to him and they bent and bowed down before him to the ground.
36 And they requested of him to pray for them, and he prayed to 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 for them, and 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 was entreated of him and He healed them.
37 “Ya’aqoḇ also, the perfect man, was delivered through his integrity from the hand of his brother Ĕsaw, and the hand of Laḇan the Aramean his mother’s brother, who had sought his life. Likewise from the hand of all the sovereigns of Kena’an who had come together against him and his children to destroy them, and 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 delivered them out of their hands, that they turned upon them and smote them. For who had ever stretched out his hand against them without punishment?
38 “Indeed Pharaoh the former, your father’s father, raised Yosĕph son of Ya’aqoḇ above all the princes of the land of Mitsrayim, when he saw his wisdom. For through his wisdom he rescued all the inhabitants of the land from the scarcity of food,
39 after which he ordered Ya’aqoḇ and his children to come down to Mitsrayim, in order that through their good, the land of Mitsrayim and the land of Goshen might be delivered from the scarcity of food.
40 “Now therefore if it seems good in your eyes, cease from destroying the children of Yisra’ĕl. But if it is not your will that they shall dwell in Mitsrayim, send them out from here, that they may go to the land of Kena’an, the land where their ancestors sojourned.”
41 And when Pharaoh heard the words of Yithro he was very wroth with him, so that he rose with shame from the sovereign’s presence, and went to Miḏyan, his land, and took Yosĕph’s rod with him.
42 And the sovereign said to Iyoḇ the Utsite, “What do you say Iyoḇ, and what is your advice regarding the Iḇrim?”
43 So Iyoḇ said to the sovereign, “Look, all the inhabitants of the land are in your power, let the sovereign do as it seems good in his eyes.”
44 And the sovereign said to Bil’am, “What do you say, Bil’am? Speak your word that we may hear it.”
45 And Bil’am said to the sovereign, “Of all that the sovereign has counselled against the Iḇrim they will be delivered, and the sovereign will not be able to prevail over them with any counsel.
46 “For if you think to lessen them by the flaming fire, you cannot prevail over them, for indeed their Elohim delivered Aḇraham their father from Ur-Kasdim. And if you think to destroy them with a sword, indeed Yitsḥaq their father was delivered from it, and a ram was placed in his place.
47 “And if you think to lessen them with hard and harsh labour, you will not prevail even in this, for their father Ya’aqoḇ served Laḇan in all manner of hard work, and prospered.
48 “Now therefore, O sovereign, hear my words, for this is the counsel which is counselled against them, by which your will prevail over them, and from which you should not depart:
49 “If it please the sovereign let him order all their children which shall be born from this day onward, to be thrown into the water, for by this you can wipe away their name, for none of them, nor of their fathers, were tried in this manner.”
50 And the sovereign heard the words of Bil’am, and the word pleased the sovereign and the princes, and the sovereign did according to the word of Bil’am.
51 And the sovereign ordered a call to be issued and a law to be made throughout the land of Mitsrayim, saying, “Every male child born to the Iḇrim from this day onward shall be thrown into the water.”
52 And Pharaoh called to all his servants, saying, “Go now and seek throughout the land of Goshen where the children of Yisra’ĕl are, and see that every son born to the Iḇrim shall be thrown into the river, but every daughter you shall let live.”
53 And when the children of Yisra’ĕl heard this word which Pharaoh had commanded, to cast their male children into the river, some of the people separated from their wives but others clung to them.
54 And from that day onward, when the time of delivery arrived to those women of Yisra’ĕl who had remained with their husbands, they went to the field to give birth there, and they brought forth in the field, and left their children in the field and returned home.
55 And 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 who had sworn to their ancestors to multiply them, sent one of His attending messengers which are in the shamayim to wash each child in water, to anoint and wrap it and to put into its hands two smooth stones from one of which it sucked milk and from the other honey. And he caused its hair to grow to its knees, by which it might cover itself; to comfort it and to cling to it, through His compassion for it.
56 And when Elohim had compassion over them and had desired to multiply them upon the face of the land, He ordered His earth to receive them to be preserved therein till the time of their growing up, after which the earth opened its mouth and vomited them out and they sprouted forth from the city like the plants of the earth, and the grass of the forest. And they returned each to his clan and to his father’s house, and they remained with them.
57 And the infants of the children of Yisra’ĕl were on the earth like the plants of the field, through Elohim’s favour to them.
58 And when all the Mitsrites saw this matter, they went out, each to his field with his yoke of oxen and his ploughshare, and they ploughed it up as one ploughs the earth at seedtime.
59 But when they ploughed they were unable to hurt the infants of the children of Yisra’ĕl, so the people increased and grew exceedingly.
60 And Pharaoh ordered his officers to go daily to Goshen to seek for the infants of the children of Yisra’ĕl.
61 And when they had sought and found one, they took it from its mother’s bosom by force, and threw it into the river, but the female child they left with its mother. So the Mitsrites did to the Yisra’ĕlites all the days.