and made their lives bitter with hard labor with mortar and brick, doing all sorts of work in the fields. In all their labors they worked them with cruelty.
Then He said to Abram, “Know for certain that your seed will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and they will be enslaved and oppressed 400 years.
and spoke to them according to the counsel of the young men, saying, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.”
Now it came about over the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. Bnei-Yisrael groaned because of their slavery. They cried out and their cry from slavery went up to God.
Therefore thus says Adonai Elohei-Tzva’ot: “O My people dwelling in Zion, do not be afraid of Assyria, though he strike you with the war-club, and lift up his rod against you, as Egypt did.
Then I will put it into the hand of your tormentors, who said to you, ‘Lie down, so we may walk over you.’ You have made your back like the ground and like a street for passersby.
“Now therefore, what do I have here?” —it is a declaration of Adonai— “My people are taken away for nothing? Its rulers wail” —it is Adonai’s declaration— “and My Name is continually blasphemed all day long.
“Is not this the fast I choose: to release the bonds of wickedness, to untie the cords of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to tear off every yoke?
You may also leave them an inheritance for your children after you, to receive as a possession. These may become your slaves permanently. But over your brothers, Bnei-Yisrael, you must not rule over one another with harshness.
Now that they have eaten the flesh of my people, stripped their skin off from them, and smashed their bones to bits, they cut it up like flesh in a pot, or like meat within a caldron.
I have surely seen the oppression of my people in Egypt and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. Now come—let Me send you to Egypt.’