¹³ Then the Lord said to Abram, “You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years.

⁶ God also told him that his descendants would live in a foreign land, where they would be oppressed as slaves for 400 years. ⁷ ‘But I will punish the nation that enslaves them,’ God said, ‘and in the end they will come out and worship me here in this place.’^[a]

¹¹ So the Egyptians made the Israelites their slaves. They appointed brutal slave drivers over them, hoping to wear them down with crushing labor. They forced them to build the cities of Pithom and Rameses as supply centers for the king.

¹⁷ “As the time drew near when God would fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt greatly increased.

⁴⁰ The people of Israel had lived in Egypt^[a] for 430 years. ⁴¹ In fact, it was on the last day of the 430th year that all the Lord’s forces left the land.

¹⁷ This is what I am trying to say: The agreement God made with Abraham could not be canceled 430 years later when God gave the law to Moses. God would be breaking his promise.

³⁴ Treat them like native-born Israelites, and love them as you love yourself. Remember that you were once foreigners living in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

The Israelites in Egypt

1 These are the names of the sons of Israel (that is, Jacob) who moved to Egypt with their father, each with his family: ² Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah,

⁸ And I will give the entire land of Canaan, where you now live as a foreigner, to you and your descendants. It will be their possession forever, and I will be their God.”