³⁹ “‘If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and sell themselves to you, do not make them work as slaves.^{(A) 40} They are to be treated as hired workers^(B) or temporary residents among you; they are to work for you until the Year of Jubilee. ⁴¹ Then they and their children are to be released, and they will go back to their own clans and to the property^(C) of their ancestors.^{(D) 42} Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt,^(E) they must not be sold as slaves. ⁴³ Do not rule over them ruthlessly,^(F) but fear your God.^(G)

⁸ Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt.^{(A) 9} “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous^(B) for us.^{(C) 10} Come, we must deal shrewdly^(D) with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”^(E)

¹¹ So they put slave masters^(F) over them to oppress them with forced labor,^(G) and they built Pithom and Rameses^(H) as store cities^(I) for Pharaoh. ¹² But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites ¹³ and worked them ruthlessly.^{(J) 14} They made their lives bitter with harsh labor^(K) in brick^(L) and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.^(M)