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Then Moses and Aaron went to the king. They said to him, “The God {named} Yahweh, whom we Israelites worship, says this to you: ‘Let my people go to the desert so that they may have a feast to honor me!’”2 But the king said, “Who is Yahweh? I have never heard of him, so why should I obey what he demands? I will certainly not let the Israelites go!”
3 Moses and Aaron replied, “The God we Hebrews worship has made a special visit to us. Please allow us to travel for a few days to a place in the wilderness in order that there we may offer sacrifices to Yahweh, our God. If we do not do that, he will cause us to die from diseases or from attacks by our enemies.”
4 But the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, it is pointless for you to distract the Israelites from their work. Get back to work, all of you!”
5 Then the king said, “Look, there are too many Israelites in Egypt for you to encourage them to just stop working.” 6 That same day the king commanded the Egyptian slave drivers and the Israelite bosses who directed the slaves, 7 “Stop giving the Israelites straw for making bricks. From now on, they will have to go get it themselves. 8 However, still force them to make the same number of bricks that they did before. Do not lower the number at all. They do not want to work. That is why they are asking me to let them go {into the wilderness} to worship their god. 9 Make the men work harder so that they will be too busy to listen to lies {from their leaders}!”
10 So the slave drivers and Israelite bosses went to where the Israelites were and said to them, “The king has said that he will no longer give you any straw. 11 So you must go yourselves and get straw where you can find it. But you must keep working to make the same number of bricks.” 12 So the Israelites scattered all over Egypt to collect leftover grain stalks to use for straw. 13 As for the slave bosses, they kept harassing them by saying, “Do all the work we assign to you each day. Make the same number of bricks as you did before, when we gave you straw!” 14 {When they were not able to make enough bricks,} the king’s slave drivers beat the bosses they had put in charge of the Israelites. They told them, “This is because your work teams have not been able to make the same number of bricks in the last couple of days as they did before.”
15 Then the Israelite bosses went in {to the palace} and complained to the king, “Why are you treating us this way? 16 Your slave drivers are not giving us any straw for making bricks, but they keep telling us, ‘Make the same number of bricks!’ They are even beating us. But {our reduced brick making is their} fault and your fault.”
17 But the king said, “You are lazy and do not want to work! That is why you keep saying, ‘Allow us to go {to the desert} to worship Yahweh.’ 18 Get back to work right now! We are not going to give you any straw, but you must keep making the same number of bricks!”
19 When {the king} said, “You must not make fewer bricks each day,” the Israelite bosses understood how bad their life was. 20 As they left their meeting with the king, they met Aaron and Moses, who were waiting for them. 21 They said to Aaron and Moses, “We hope Yahweh notices that you have made the king and his officials hate us. We hope he punishes you two! You have made them think they should kill us!”
22 Moses left them and prayed to Yahweh again, “My Lord, why have you caused all these evil things to happen to your people? You sent me to help them, not hurt them. 23 Ever since I went to the king and told him what you told me to say, he has treated your people very badly, and you have not done anything to help them!”