CHAPTER IX.

The Birth of Moses. The Cruelty of Pharaoh. Moses called by God to be a Prophet.

OW, Joseph being dead, and all his brethren, and all that generation, there arose up a new king over Egypt who knew not Joseph. And he said to his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. Let us deal wisely with them, lest if there fall out any war, they join themselves unto our enemies, and fight against us.

So the Egyptians set taskmasters over the children of Israel, who afflicted them with burdens, and made them build for Pharaoh treasure cities-Pithom and Raamses. But the more they afflicted them the more they multiplied and grew. And the Egyptians were very hard upon the children of Israel, and made their lives bitter with hard bondage, and made them labour with mortar and bricks and hard service in the fields. And, in order that the children of Israel should not be so many in number, Pharaoh charged that all their sons should be cast into the river as soon as they were born.

Now, a son was born to a man of the house of Israel's son Levi, and he was a goodly child. And

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his mother hid him for three months. And when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein. And she hid it in the flags by the river's brink. And his sister stood afar off, to see what would become of it. Now, the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river, and her maidens walked along by the river's side, and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child, and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children. Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee? And she said, Go. And the maid weht, and called the child's mother. And Pharaoh's daughter

said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages.

And the woman

took the child, her own child, and nursed it. And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses, and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.

Now, when Moses was grown, he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens. And the children of Israel sighed by reason of their bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God. And God remembered his covenant with Abraham, and Isaac, and with Jacob, and God looked upon the children of Israel, and had respect unto them.