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Hebrew Servants
"If you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve only six years and be freed in the seventh year, and need pay nothing to regain his freedom.
"If he sold himself as a slave before he married, then if he married afterwards, only he shall be freed, but if he was married before he became a slave, then his wife shall be freed with him at the same time. But if his master gave him a wife while he was a slave, and they have sons or daughters, the wife and children shall still belong to the master, and he shall go out by himself free.
"But if the man shall plainly declare, 'I prefer my master, my wife, and my children, and I would rather not go free,' then his master shall bring him before the judges and shall publicly bore his ear with an awl, and after that he will be a slave forever.
"If a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, then he shall let her be bought back again; but he has no power to sell her to foreigners, since he has wronged her by no longer wanting her after marrying her. And if he arranges an engagement between a Hebrew slave-girl and his son, then he may no longer treat her as a slave-girl, but must treat her as a daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing, or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three things, then she may leave freely without any payment."
TEXT SOURCE:
(Exodus 21:2-11) The Children's Living Bible, ©1970 Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187
TITLE SOURCE: The New Student Bible, ©1992 Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids Michigan
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