Exodus 1:8-14

International Children’s Bible

Trouble for the People of Israel

⁸ Then a new king began to rule Egypt. He did not know who Joseph was. ⁹ This king said to his people, “Look! The people of Israel are too many! And they are too strong for us to handle! ¹⁰ We must make plans against them. If we don’t, the number of their people will grow even more. Then if there is a war, they might join our enemies. Then they could fight us and escape from the country!”

¹¹ So the Egyptians made life hard for the people of Israel. They put slave masters over the Israelites. The slave masters forced the Israelites to build the cities Pithom and Rameses for the king. These cities were supply centers in which the Egyptians stored things. ¹² The Egyptians forced the Israelites to work even harder. But this made the Israelites grow in number and spread more. So the Egyptians became more afraid of them. ¹³ They forced the Israelites to work even harder. ¹⁴ The Egyptians made life hard for the Israelites. They forced the Israelites to work very hard making bricks and mortar. They also forced them to do all kinds of hard work in the fields. The Egyptians were not merciful to them in all their hard work.