Exodus 1:14

and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick and in all manner of service in the field; all their service wherein they made them serve was with rigor. Chagrined at the failure of their first plan, the Egyptians added ill treatment and cruelty to oppression. Two new forms of service were laid upon them, brick-making, which included both the preparing of the clay and the drying of the brick, and the hard field labor on the soil which had to be irrigated. Thus all the work which the Egyptians performed through the Israelites was done under hard pressure upon the latter. To this day tribulation and persecution is the lot of the people of God, but such crosses bring them only blessing and gain.