² “If you buy ^(A)a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years; but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment.

¹⁰ You shall thus set apart as holy the fiftieth year and ^(A)proclaim ^[a]a release through the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, ^[b]and ^(B)each of you shall return to his own possession of land, ^[c]and each of you shall return to his family.

³⁹ ‘^(A)If a brother of yours becomes so poor with regard to you that he sells himself to you, you shall not subject him to a slave’s service. ⁴⁰ He shall be with you as a hired man, as ^(B)if he were a foreign resident; he shall serve with you until the year of jubilee. ⁴¹ He shall then go out from you, he and his sons with him, and shall return to his family, that he may return to the possession of the land of his fathers. ⁴² For they are My slaves whom I brought out from the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold in a slave sale. ^43 (C)You shall not have dominion over him with brutality, but you shall fear your God. ⁴⁴ As for your male and female slaves whom you may have—you may acquire male and female slaves from the nations that are around you. ⁴⁵ And also you may acquire from the sons of the foreign residents who sojourn among you, from them and their families who are with you; as for those whom they have begotten in your land, they also may become your possession. ⁴⁶ You may even give them as an inheritance to your sons after you, to receive as a possession; you can use them as permanent slaves. ^(D)But in respect to your brothers, the sons of Israel, you shall not have dominion over one another with brutality.

Each Usury Is Forsaken

5 Then ^(A)there was a great outcry of the people and of their wives against their ^(B)Jewish brothers. ² Now there were those who were saying, “We, with our sons and our daughters, are many; therefore let us ^(C)get grain that we may eat and live.” ³ There were others who were saying, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses, that we might get grain because of the famine.” ⁴ Also there were those who were saying, “We have borrowed money ^(D)for the king’s tax on our fields and our vineyards. ⁵ But now ^(E)our flesh is like the flesh of our brothers, our children like their children. Yet behold, ^(F)we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters are forced into subjugation, and we have no power in our hands to help, and our fields and vineyards belong to others.”

⁶ Then I was very ^(G)angry when I had heard their outcry and these words. ⁷ I consulted within my own heart and contended with the nobles and the officials and said to them, “^(H)You are exacting usury, each from his brother!” Therefore, I held a great assembly against them. ⁸ I said to them, “We, according to our ability, ^(I)have bought back our Jewish brothers who were sold to the nations; and now would you also sell your brothers that they may be sold to us?” Then they were silent and could not find a word to say. ⁹ And I said, “The thing which you are doing is not good; should you not walk in the fear of our God because of ^(J)the reproach of the nations, our enemies? ¹⁰ And likewise I, my brothers, and my young men are lending them money and grain. Please, let us forsake this usury. ¹¹ Please, give back to them this very day their fields, their vineyards, their olive groves and their houses, also the hundredth part of the money and of the grain, the new wine and the oil that you are exacting from them.” ¹² Then they said, “We ^(K)will give it back and ^(L)will require nothing from them; we will do exactly as you are saying.” So I called the priests and ^(M)made them swear that they would do according to this word. ¹³ I ^(N)also shook out the ^[a]front of my garment and said, “Thus may God shake out every man from his house and from his possessions who does not establish this word; even thus may he be shaken out and emptied.” And ^(O)all the assembly said, “Amen!” And they praised Yahweh. Then the people did according to this word.

¹⁴ “^(A)At the end of seven years each of you shall let his Hebrew brother go who ^[a]has been sold to you and has served you six years, and you shall let him go to be free from you; but your fathers ^(B)did not obey Me or incline their ear to Me.

¹⁷ “Therefore thus says Yahweh, ‘You have not obeyed Me in proclaiming ^[a]release each man to his brother and each man to his neighbor. Behold, I am ^(A)proclaiming a ^[b]release to you,’ declares Yahweh, ‘to the ^(B)sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; and I will make you a ^(C)terror to all the kingdoms of the earth.