1. Then the Lord said to Moses:
2. Tell the Israelites to turn back and set up camp in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea in front of Baal-zephon. You should set up camp in front of it by the sea.
3. Pharaoh will think to himself, The Israelites are lost and confused in the land. The desert has trapped them.
4. I’ll make Pharaoh stubborn, and he’ll chase them. I’ll gain honor at the expense of Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord. And they did exactly that.
5. When Egypt’s king was told that the people had run away, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about the people. They said, "What have we done, letting Israel go free from their slavery to us?"
6. So he sent for his chariot and took his army with him.
7. He took six hundred elite chariots and all of Egypt’s other chariots with captains on all of them.
8. The Lord made Pharaoh, Egypt’s king, stubborn, and he chased the Israelites, who were leaving confidently.
9. The Egyptians, including all of Pharaoh’s horse-drawn chariots, his cavalry, and his army, chased them and caught up with them as they were camped by the sea, by Pi-hahiroth in front of Baal-zephon.
10. As Pharaoh drew closer, the Israelites looked back and saw the Egyptians marching toward them. The Israelites were terrified and cried out to the Lord.
11. They said to Moses, "Weren’t there enough graves in Egypt that you took us away to die in the desert? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt like this?
12. Didn’t we tell you the same thing in Egypt? ‘Leave us alone! Let us work for the Egyptians!’ It would have been better for us to work for the Egyptians than to die in the desert."