God Hears Israel's Groaning

^23 (A)During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel ^(B)groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. ^(C)Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.

⁶ Say therefore to the people of Israel, ^(A)‘I am the Lord, and ^(B)I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and ^(C)I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. ⁷ I ^(D)will take you to be my people, and ^(E)I will be your God, and you shall know that ^(F)I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out ^(G)from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

^2 (A)When you buy a Hebrew slave,^[a] he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. ³ If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. ⁴ If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out alone. ⁵ But ^(B)if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ ⁶ then his master shall bring him to ^(C)God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.

⁷ “When a man ^(D)sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. ⁸ If she does not please her master, who has designated her^[b] for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have 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 deal with her as with a daughter. ¹⁰ If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or ^(E)her marital rights. ¹¹ And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.