Hebrew Servants^(A)(B)

² “If you buy a Hebrew servant,^(C) he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free,^(D) without paying anything.

Freeing Servants^(A)(B)

¹² If any of your people—Hebrew men or women—sell themselves to you and serve you six years, in the seventh year you must let them go free.^(C)

²² But Solomon did not make slaves^(A) of any of the Israelites; they were his fighting men, his government officials, his officers, his captains, and the commanders of his chariots and charioteers.

The Widow’s Olive Oil

4 The wife of a man from the company^(A) of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the Lord. But now his creditor^(B) is coming to take my two boys as his slaves.”

⁵ Although we are of the same flesh and blood^(A) as our fellow Jews and though our children are as good as theirs, yet we have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery.^(B) Some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but we are powerless, because our fields and our vineyards belong to others.”^(C)