1. And afterwards Mosheh and Aharon went in and said to Pharaoh, “Thus said יהוה Elohim of Yisra’ĕl, ‘Let My people go, so that they keep a festival to Me in the wilderness.’ ”
2. And Pharaoh said, “Who is יהוה, that I should obey His voice to let Yisra’ĕl go? I do not know יהוה, nor am I going to let Yisra’ĕl go.”
3. And they said, “The Elohim of the Heḇrews has met with us. Please, let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness and slaughter to יהוה our Elohim, lest He fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.”
4. But the sovereign of Mitsrayim said to them, “Mosheh and Aharon, why do you take the people from their work? Get back to your burdens.”
5. And Pharaoh said, “See, the people of the land are many now, and you make them cease from their burdens!”
6. And the same day Pharaoh commanded the slave-drivers of the people and their foremen, saying,
7. “You are no longer to give the people straw to make bricks as before. Let them go and gather straw for themselves.
8. “And lay on them the required amount of bricks which they made before, do not diminish it. For they are idle, that is why they cry out, saying, ‘Let us go and slaughter to our Elohim.’
9. “Let more work be laid on the men, so that they labour in it, and not pay attention to words of falsehood.”
10. And the slave-drivers of the people and their foremen went out and spoke to the people, saying, “Thus said Pharaoh, ‘I do not give you straw.
11. ‘Go, take straw for yourselves, wherever you find it, for your work shall not be diminished.’ ”
12. And the people were scattered in all the land of Mitsrayim – to gather stubble for straw.
13. And the slave-drivers were hurrying them on, saying, “Complete your work, your daily amount, as when there was straw.”