Then a new king, who knew nothing of Joseph, rose to power in Egypt.

He said to his people, “See! The Israelite people have multiplied and become more numerous than we are!"

"Come, let us deal shrewdly with them to stop their increase; otherwise, in time of war they too may join our enemies to fight against us, and so leave the land.”

Accordingly, they set supervisors over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor. Thus they had to build for Pharaoh the garrison cities of Pithom and Raamses.

Yet the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians began to loathe the Israelites.

So the Egyptians reduced the Israelites to cruel slavery, making life bitter for them with hard labor, at mortar and brick and all kinds of field work—cruelly oppressed in all their labor.