Exodus 5

¹And after that, Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh, and said, The Lord, the God of Israel, says, Let my people go so that they may keep a feast to me in the waste land.

²And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord, to whose voice I am to give ear and let Israel go? I have no knowledge of the Lord and I will not let Israel go.

³And they said, The God of the Hebrews has come to us: let us then go three days' journey into the waste land to make an offering to the Lord our God, so that he may not send death on us by disease or the sword.

⁴And the king of Egypt said to them, Why do you, Moses and Aaron, take the people away from their work? get back to your work.

⁵And Pharaoh said, Truly, the people of the land are increasing in number, and you are keeping them back from their work.

⁶The same day Pharaoh gave orders to the overseers and those who were responsible for the work, saying,

⁷Give these men no more dry stems for their brick-making as you have been doing; let them go and get the material for themselves.

⁸But see that they make the same number of bricks as before, and no less: for they have no love for work; and so they are crying out and saying, Let us go and make an offering to our God.

⁹Give the men harder work, and see that they do it; let them not give attention to false words.

¹⁰And the overseers of the people and their responsible men went out and said to the people, Pharaoh says, I will give you no more dry stems.

¹¹Go yourselves and get dry stems wherever you are able; for your work is not to be any less.