¹⁰ Come, we must deal shrewdly with them, lest they become many, and when war happens, they also will join our enemies and will fight against us and go up from the land.” ¹¹ And they appointed commanders of forced labor over them in order to oppress them with their forced labor,^[a] and they built storage cities for Pharaoh—Pithom and Rameses. ¹² And as he oppressed them, so they became many, and so they spread out, and the Egyptians were afraid because of the presence of the Israelites.^[b]