Exodus 5:2-12

2 “Is that so?” retorted Pharaoh. “And who is the LORD ? Why should I listen to him and let Israel go? I don’t know the LORD, and I will not let Israel go.”
3 But Aaron and Moses persisted. “The God of the Hebrews has met with us,” they declared. “So let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness so we can offer sacrifices to the LORD our God. If we don’t, he will kill us with a plague or with the sword.”
4 Pharaoh replied, “Moses and Aaron, why are you distracting the people from their tasks? Get back to work!
5 Look, there are many of your people in the land, and you are stopping them from their work.”
6 That same day Pharaoh sent this order to the Egyptian slave drivers and the Israelite foremen:
7 “Do not supply any more straw for making bricks. Make the people get it themselves!
8 But still require them to make the same number of bricks as before. Don’t reduce the quota. They are lazy. That’s why they are crying out, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifices to our God.’
9 Load them down with more work. Make them sweat! That will teach them to listen to lies!”
10 So the slave drivers and foremen went out and told the people: “This is what Pharaoh says: I will not provide any more straw for you.
11 Go and get it yourselves. Find it wherever you can. But you must produce just as many bricks as before!”
12 So the people scattered throughout the land of Egypt in search of stubble to use as straw.
Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.