and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all kinds of work in the field, all their work which they made them do was with harshness.
and he spoke to them according to the advice of the young men, saying, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I add to your yoke; my father flogged you with whips, but I, I flog you with scourges!”
Therefore thus said the Master יהוה of hosts, “My people, who dwell in Tsiyon, be not afraid of Ashshur, who beats you with a rod and lifts up his staff against you, in the way of Mitsrayim.
“And I shall put it into the hand of those who afflict you, who have said to your being, ‘Bow down, and we pass over you.’ And you made your back like the ground, and as the street, to walk over.”
“And now, what have I here,” declares יהוה, “that My people are taken away for naught? Those who rule over them make them wail,” declares יהוה, “and My Name is despised all day continually.
“Is this not the fast that I have chosen: to loosen the tight cords of wrongness, to undo the bands of the yoke, to exempt the oppressed, and to break off every yoke?
‘And you shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them as a possession, they are your slaves for all time. But over your brothers, the children of Yisra’ĕ
and who have eaten the flesh of My people, and stripped off their skin, and have broken their bones, and have cut it up as into a pot, like flesh in the cooking pot?”
“I have certainly seen the evil treatment of my people who are in Mitsrayim, and I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. And now come, let Me send you to Mitsrayim.” ’