^2 (A)When you purchase a Hebrew slave,^[a] he is to serve you for six years, but in the seventh year he shall leave as a free person without any payment. ³ If he comes into service alone, he shall leave alone; if he comes with a wife, his wife shall leave with him. ⁴ But if his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children belong to her master and the man shall leave alone. ⁵ If, however, the slave declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children; I will not leave as a free person,’ ⁶ his master shall bring him to God^[b] and there, at the door or doorpost, he shall pierce his ear with an awl, thus keeping him as his slave forever.

⁷ When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go free as male slaves do. ⁸ But if she displeases her master, who had designated her^[c] for himself, he shall let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. ⁹ If he designates her for his son, he shall treat her according to the ordinance for daughters. ¹⁰ If he takes another wife, he shall not withhold her food, her clothing, or her conjugal rights. ¹¹ If he does not do these three things for her, she may leave without cost, without any payment.

Hebrew Slaves. ^12 (A)If your kin, a Hebrew man or woman, sells himself or herself to you, he or she is to serve you for six years, but in the seventh year you shall release him or her as a free person. ^13 (B)When you release a male from your service, as a free person, you shall not send him away empty-handed, ¹⁴ but shall weigh him down with gifts from your flock and threshing floor and wine press; as the Lord, your God, has blessed you, so you shall give to him. ¹⁵ For remember that you too were slaves in the land of Egypt, and the Lord, your God, redeemed you. That is why I am giving you this command today.^{(C) 16 (D)}But if he says to you, “I do not wish to leave you,” because he loves you and your household, since he is well off with you, ¹⁷ you shall take an awl and put it through his ear^[a] into the door, and he shall be your slave forever. Your female slave, also, you shall treat in the same way. ¹⁸ Do not be reluctant when you let them go free, since the service they have given you for six years was worth twice a hired laborer’s salary; and the Lord, your God, will bless you in everything you do.

²² But Solomon made none of the Israelites forced laborers, for they were his fighting force, his ministers, commanders, adjutants, chariot officers, and cavalry.

⁸ This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to proclaim freedom: ⁹ Everyone must free their Hebrew slaves, male and female, so that no one should hold another Judahite in servitude.^{(A) 10} All the princes and the people who entered this covenant agreed to set free their slaves, their male and female servants, so that they should no longer be in servitude. But even though they agreed and freed them, ¹¹ afterward they took back their male and female servants whom they had set free and again forced them into servitude.

¹² Then this word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: ¹³ Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I myself made a covenant with your ancestors the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery: ¹⁴ Every seventh year each of you must set free all Hebrews who have sold themselves to you; six years they shall serve you, but then you shall let them go free. Your ancestors, however, did not listen to me or obey me. ¹⁵ As for you, today you repented and did what is right in my eyes by proclaiming freedom for your neighbor and making a covenant before me in the house which bears my name. ¹⁶ But then you again profaned my name by taking back your male and female slaves whom you had just set free for life; you forced them to become your slaves again.^{(B) 17} Therefore, thus says the Lord: You for your part did not obey me by proclaiming freedom for your families and neighbors. So I now proclaim freedom for you—oracle of the Lord—for the sword, starvation, and disease. I will make you an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. ^18 [a]Those who violated my covenant and did not observe the terms of the covenant they made in my presence—I will make them like the calf which they cut in two so they could pass between its parts— ¹⁹ the princes of Judah and of Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests, and all the people of the land, who passed between the parts of the calf. ²⁰ These I will hand over to their enemies, to those who seek their lives: their corpses shall become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.^(C)

²¹ Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his princes, I will hand also over to their enemies, to those who seek their lives, to the army of the king of Babylon which is now withdrawing from you.^{(D) 22} I am giving the command—oracle of the Lord—to bring them back to this city. They shall attack and capture it, and burn it with fire; the cities of Judah I will turn into a waste, where no one dwells.^(E)