Exodus 1:9-11

International Children’s Bible

⁹ This king said to his people, “Look! The people of Israel are too many! And they are too strong for us to handle! ¹⁰ We must make plans against them. If we don’t, the number of their people will grow even more. Then if there is a war, they might join our enemies. Then they could fight us and escape from the country!”

¹¹ So the Egyptians made life hard for the people of Israel. They put slave masters over the Israelites. The slave masters forced the Israelites to build the cities Pithom and Rameses for the king. These cities were supply centers in which the Egyptians stored things.