and they made their lives bitter with hard service—in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. In all their service they made them serve with rigor.
Is not this the word that we spoke to you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”
In the passing of time, the king of Egypt died. And the Israelites sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out, and their cry came up to God on account of the bondage.
And they said to them, “May the Lord look on you and judge, because you have made our scent stink in the estimation of Pharaoh and in the estimation of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us.”
They journeyed from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom, and the soul of the people was very discouraged because of the way.