Exodus 5

1 After this, Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and said to him, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Send my people out, so that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.” 2 And Pharaoh said, “Who is he, that I should listen to his voice and send the children of Israel out? I do not know the Lord, and I am not sending Israel out.” 3 And they said to him, “The God of the Hebrews has called us. Let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness, so that we may sacrifice to our God — or death or slaughter may meet us.” [a] 4 And the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why are you turning my people away from their work? Get back, each of you, to your own work.” 5 And Pharaoh said, “Look how many these people are now. Are we to give them a rest from their work?”

6 And Pharaoh gave orders to the work-drivers of the people and to the record-keepers: 7 “You are not to go on giving the people straw for brickmaking as you did yesterday and the day before. Let them go and gather their own straw. 8 And you will lay on them the same quota of bricks they make each day — take nothing off it. They are idle; that is why they are shouting, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’ 9 Let the work of these men be made heavy. Let them worry about that, and not about empty words.” 10 So the work-drivers and the record-keepers drove the people hard, and said to them, “This is what Pharaoh says: I am giving you straw no longer. 11 Go yourselves and gather your own straw wherever you can find it — because nothing at all is being taken off your quota.” 12 So the people scattered through the whole land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw, 13 while the work-drivers drove them hard, saying, “Finish the work required of you each day, the same as when the straw was given to you.” 14 And the record-keepers of the race of the children of Israel, the men Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them, were flogged, and it was said to them, “Why have you not finished your quota of brickwork yesterday and the day before — and today as well?”

15 So the record-keepers of the children of Israel went in and cried out to Pharaoh: “Why are you doing this to your servants? 16 No straw is given to your servants, and they tell us to make bricks — and look, your servants are being flogged. You are doing wrong to your own people.” [b] 17 And he said to them, “You are idle. You are loafers. That is why you keep saying, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’ 18 Now go and work. Straw will not be given to you — and you will hand over the full quota of bricks.” 19 And the record-keepers of the children of Israel saw that they were in trouble, when they were told, “You are not to fall short of the daily quota of brickmaking.” 20 And on their way out from Pharaoh they met Moses and Aaron, who were coming to meet them, 21 and they said to them, “May God look on you and judge — because you have made us a stench to Pharaoh and to his servants, and put a sword in his hand to kill us.”

22 Then Moses turned to the Lord and said, “Lord, why have you brought harm on this people? And why did you send me? 23 From the time I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought harm on this people — and you have not rescued your people.”