출애굽기 5

Bricks without straw

¹After that, Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and told him, “The LORD, the God of Israel, says, ‘Release my people so that they can celebrate a festival for me in the wilderness.’” ²Pharaoh replied, “Who is the LORD, that I should do what he says and release Israel? I do not know the LORD, and I will certainly not let Israel go.” ³They said, “The God of the Hebrews has come to meet us. Please let us travel three days into the wilderness to offer sacrifice to the LORD our God, or he may strike us down with disease or war.” ⁴The king of Egypt answered them, “Moses and Aaron, why are you distracting the people from their tasks? Get back to your labor!” ⁵Pharaoh went on, “Look how numerous these people of the land have become, and you want to give them rest from their labor!” ⁶That same day Pharaoh gave orders to the taskmasters over the people and to their foremen: ⁷“Do not supply the people with straw for brickmaking any longer, as you have been doing. Let them go out and collect their own straw. ⁸But require of them the same number of bricks as before; do not lower the quota. They are idle, which is why they keep calling out, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’ ⁹Make the work heavier for these men; keep them busy at it so that they will not listen to lies.” ¹⁰So the taskmasters and foremen went out and announced to the people, “Pharaoh says, ‘I will give you no more straw. ¹¹Go and get straw for yourselves wherever you can find it. But your workload will not be reduced one bit.’” ¹²The people spread out over the whole land of Egypt to gather stubble to use as straw. ¹³The taskmasters kept up the pressure: “Finish your work, each day’s quota on its day, just as you did when straw was supplied.” ¹⁴The Israelite foremen whom Pharaoh’s taskmasters had put in charge were beaten and asked, “Why have you not made your full quota of bricks, either yesterday or today, as you did before?” ¹⁵Then the Israelite foremen went and appealed to Pharaoh: “Why do you treat your servants like this? ¹⁶No straw is given to your servants, and still they say to us, ‘Make bricks!’ Now your servants are beaten, though it is your own people who are in the wrong.”^{a 17}But he answered, “You are idle, nothing but idle! That is why you keep saying, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifice to the LORD.’ ¹⁸Now go and work. You will be given no straw, but you must still turn in the full count of bricks.” ¹⁹The Israelite foremen knew they were in serious trouble when they were told, “You must not reduce your daily count of bricks.” ²⁰As they came out from Pharaoh’s presence, they found Moses and Aaron standing there waiting for them. ²¹They said to them, “May the LORD see what you have done and judge you! You have made us hateful to Pharaoh and his officials, and you have handed them a sword to kill us.” ²²Moses turned back to the LORD and said, “Lord, why have you brought this evil on this people? Why did you send me at all? ²³From the moment I went to speak to Pharaoh in your name, he has treated this people cruelly, and you have done nothing at all to rescue your people.”