The Israelites Are Oppressed

⁸ Now a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph.^{(A) 9} He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we.^{(B) 10} Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” ¹¹ Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh.^{(C) 12} But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. ¹³ The Egyptians subjected the Israelites to hard servitude ¹⁴ and made their lives bitter with hard servitude in mortar and bricks and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.^(D)

⁶ That same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people, as well as their supervisors,^(A)

⁷ “You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as before; let them go and gather straw for themselves.