¹³ Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years^(A) your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved^(B) and mistreated there.

²³ During that long period,^(A) the king of Egypt died.^(B) The Israelites groaned in their slavery^(C) and cried out, and their cry^(D) for help because of their slavery went up to God. ²⁴ God heard their groaning and he remembered^(E) his covenant^(F) with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. ²⁵ So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned^(G) about them.

⁶ God spoke to him in this way: ‘For four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated.^(A)

⁷ But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,’ God said, ‘and afterward they will come out of that country and worship me in this place.’^[a](A)