Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh
5
📚✭And afterwards Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, “Thus says the LORD God of Israel: Let my people go so that they may hold a feast to me in the desert”.2 📚And Pharaoh said, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, nor will I let Israel go”.
3 📚And they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a three days’ journey into the desert and sacrifice to the LORD our God, so that he will not attack us with plague or with the sword”.
4 📚✭And the king of Egypt said to them, “Why do you, Moses and Aaron, take the people away from their work? Get back to your labours”. 5 📚And Pharaoh said, “Look, the people of the land now are many, and you are making them rest from their labours”.
6 📚And that same day Pharaoh commanded the people’s slave drivers, and their overseers, saying, 7 📚“You must not give the people straw to make brick any more, as before. Let them go and gather straw for themselves. 8 📚And you must put on them the same quota of bricks which they made before. You must not make it any less, for they are idle. So they cry out, saying, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’ 9 📚Let more work be put on the men, so that they will keep working and not pay attention to empty words”.
10 📚And the people’s slave drivers and their overseers went out and spoke to the people, saying, “Thus says Pharaoh: ‘I will not give you straw. 11 📚You go and get your straw where you can find it. But none of your work will be reduced.’ ” 12 📚So the people were scattered throughout the whole land of Egypt to gather stubble instead of straw. 13 And the slave drivers hurried them, saying, “Complete your work, your daily tasks, just as when there was straw”. 14 📚And the overseers of the children of Israel, whom Pharaoh’s slave drivers had put over them, were beaten and were asked, “Why have you not completed your task in making bricks both yesterday and today, as before?”
15 Then the overseers of the children of Israel came and cried out to Pharaoh, saying, “Why are you treating your servants like this? 16 There is no straw given to your servants, and they say to us, ‘Make brick!’ And, see, your servants are beaten. But the fault is with your own people”.
17 📚But he said, “You are idle! You are idle! Therefore you say, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifices to the LORD.’ 18 📚So go now and work. For no straw is going to be given to you; yet you must deliver the quota of bricks”.
19 📚✭And the overseers of the children of Israel saw that they were in trouble when they were told, “You must not make any reduction from the bricks of your daily quota”. 20 And they met Moses and Aaron, who were waiting for them when they came from Pharaoh, 21 📚and they said to them, “The LORD look on you, and judge. Because you have made us odious in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hands to kill us”.
God’s promise of deliverance