B01 The Israelites Are Treated Cruelly In Egypt Poem by Simple Simon

Jacob's direct descendants seventy:
They had their children aplenty.
The Israelites in large number,
Posed to Egyptians, a certain danger.

A new king came to power,
And saw their growing number.
'These Israelites are a threat, '
He said, 'To our Country Egypt.'

'In case of war, they could then
With our enemies join;
To keep their strength down,
Now, we should think and plan.'

The king put slave-drivers,
To crush the Israelite laborers
Of their Spirits, with hard labor;
But still, they grew in number.

Their lives became miserable,
In the name of slavery horrible.
They had to do forced labor
Under Egyptian slave-drivers.

To the midwife cadre
The king issued an order
'Go, kill their new-born boys
But spare their girl-babies.'

But fearing God, the midwives
Never took their boys' lives.
And when he asked them why,
They told him a blatant lie.

'Unlike the Egyptian women
The hard-working Hebrew women
Delivered easily, their children
Even before, for their help, we ran.'

The king ordered again
'Throw every new-born
Hebrew boy into the Nile
But spare their baby girl.'