3. They replied, “The God of the Hebrews has come to meet us. Let us go a three days’ journey in the wilderness, that we may offer sacrifice to the Lord, our God, so that he does not strike us with the plague or the sword.”
4. The king of Egypt answered them, “Why, Moses and Aaron, do you make the people neglect their work? Off to your labors!”
5. Pharaoh continued, “Look how they are already more numerous than the people of the land, and yet you would give them rest from their labors!”
6. That very day Pharaoh gave the taskmasters of the people and their foremen this order:
7. “You shall no longer supply the people with straw for their brickmaking as before. Let them go and gather their own straw!
8. Yet you shall levy upon them the same quota of bricks as they made previously. Do not reduce it. They are lazy; that is why they are crying, ‘Let us go to offer sacrifice to our God.’