Now the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous. Then a new king said to his people, “The Israelites have become much too numerous for us.” So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor and worked them ruthlessly.
Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”
Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.
Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.
Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”
“Yes, go,” she answered. And the girl went and got the baby’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him.
When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses.
New International Version ©1984, Abrdgd, EMPHASES Added