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So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.
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Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it.
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During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God.
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The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.
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That same day Pharaoh gave this order to the slave drivers and overseers in charge of the people:
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Then the slave drivers and the overseers went out and said to the people, “This is what Pharaoh says: ‘I will not give you any more straw.
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The slave drivers kept pressing them, saying, “Complete the work required of you for each day, just as when you had straw.”
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And Pharaoh’s slave drivers beat the Israelite overseers they had appointed, demanding, “Why haven’t you met your quota of bricks yesterday or today, as before?”
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“Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.
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Those officials of Pharaoh who feared the word of the Lord hurried to bring their slaves and their livestock inside.
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But those who ignored the word of the Lord left their slaves and livestock in the field.
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Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the female slave, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well.
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Any slave you have bought may eat it after you have circumcised him,
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Then Moses said to the people, “Commemorate this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, because the Lord brought you out of it with a mighty hand. Eat nothing containing yeast.
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“In days to come, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ say to him, ‘With a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
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“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
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“Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result,
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but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.
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“An owner who hits a male or female slave in the eye and destroys it must let the slave go free to compensate for the eye.
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And an owner who knocks out the tooth of a male or female slave must let the slave go free to compensate for the tooth.
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If the bull gores a male or female slave, the owner must pay thirty shekels of silver to the master of the slave, and the bull is to be stoned to death.
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“Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and so that the slave born in your household and the foreigner living among you may be refreshed.
