“You must no longer give straw to the people for making bricks as before. Let them go and collect straw for themselves.

You go get straw for yourselves wherever you can find it, because there will be no reduction at all in your workload.’”

So the slave masters of the people and their foremen went to the Israelites and said, “Thus says Pharaoh: ‘I am not giving you straw.

No straw is given to your servants, but we are told, ‘Make bricks!’ Your servants are even being beaten, but the fault is with your people.”