11. Go and get straw for yourselves wherever you can find it, for there will be no reduction of your work.”
12. So the people were scattered throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw.
13. But the slave masters pressured, saying, “Fulfill your work, your daily amount, just as when there was straw.”
14. Moreover the foremen of Bnei-Yisrael, whom Pharaoh’s slave masters had set over them, were beaten and asked, “Why haven’t you met your quota of bricks, both yesterday and today like before?”
15. The foremen of Bnei-Yisrael came and cried out to Pharaoh saying, “Why do you deal this way with your servants?
16. No straw is given to your servants, yet they say to us, ‘Make bricks!’ and look, your servants are beaten. But it is your own people at fault.”
17. But he said, “Lazy! You’re lazy! That’s why you were saying, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to Adonai.’
18. So go now and work! No straw will be given to you—but you must deliver the quota of bricks.”
19. So the foremen of Bnei-Yisrael saw that they were in trouble when they were told, “You are not to reduce the number of bricks from day to day.”
20. Then they met Moses and Aaron, who were waiting for them as they came from Pharaoh.
21. So they said to them, “May Adonai look on you and judge, because you have made us a stench in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of his servants—putting a sword in their hand to kill us!”
22. So Moses returned to Adonai and said, “Adonai, why have You brought evil on these people? Is this why You sent me?
23. Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your Name, he has brought evil on these people. You have not delivered Your people at all.”