¹³ Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years^(A) your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved^(B) and mistreated there.

Moses Flees to Midian

¹¹ One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people^(A) were and watched them at their hard labor.^(B) He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people.

⁴ But the king of Egypt said, “Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their labor?^(A) Get back to your work!”

⁶ “Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.^(A) I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem^(B) you with an outstretched arm^(C) and with mighty acts of judgment.^{(D) 7} I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God.^(E) Then you will know^(F) that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

²⁷ That day he made the Gibeonites^(A) woodcutters and water carriers^(B) for the assembly, to provide for the needs of the altar of the Lord at the place the Lord would choose.^(C) And that is what they are to this day.

²¹ Solomon conscripted the descendants^(A) of all these peoples remaining in the land—whom the Israelites could not exterminate^[a](B)—to serve as slave labor,^(C) as it is to this day.

Preparations for the Temple

² So David gave orders to assemble the foreigners^(A) residing in Israel, and from among them he appointed stonecutters^(B) to prepare dressed stone for building the house of God.