The Law Concerning Servants(A)

21 “Now these are the [a]judgments which you shall (B)set before them: (C)If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years; and in the seventh he shall go out free and pay nothing. If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master has given him a wife, and she has borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself. (D)But if the servant plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ then his master shall bring him to the (E)judges. He shall also bring him to the door, or to the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him forever.

“And if a man (F)sells his daughter to be a female slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. If she [b]does not please her master, who has betrothed her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt deceitfully with her. And if he has betrothed her to his son, he shall deal with her according to the custom of daughters. 10 If he takes another wife, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, (G)and her marriage rights. 11 And if he does not do these three for her, then she shall go out free, without paying money.

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Footnotes

  1. Exodus 21:1 ordinances
  2. Exodus 21:8 Lit. is evil in the eyes of

The Sabbath of the Seventh Year(A)

25 And the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount (B)Sinai, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall (C)keep a sabbath to the Lord. Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather its fruit; but in the (D)seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn (E)rest for the land, a sabbath to the Lord. You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard. (F)What grows of its own accord of your harvest you shall not reap, nor gather the grapes of your untended vine, for it is a year of rest for the land. And the sabbath produce of the land shall be food for you: for you, your male and female servants, your hired man, and the stranger who dwells with you, for your livestock and the beasts that are in your land—all its produce shall be for food.

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