Deuteronomy 15:18-20

Contemporary English Version

¹⁸Don't complain when you have to set a slave free. After all, you got six years of service at half the cost of hiring someone to do the work.^[a]

First-Born Animals

(Leviticus 27.26,27; Numbers 18.15-18)

Moses said to Israel:

¹⁹^(A) If the first-born animal of a cow or sheep or goat is a male, it must be given to the Lord. Don't put first-born cattle to work or cut wool from first-born sheep. ²⁰Instead, each year you must take the first-born of these animals to the place where the Lord your God chooses to be worshiped. You and your family will sacrifice them to the Lord and then eat them as part of a sacred meal.

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Footnotes

15.18 six years … work: Or “six years of service, and it cost you no more than if you had hired someone to do the work”; or “six years of service, for what you would have had to pay a worker for two years.”