Exodus 21:1-6
New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised
The Law concerning Slaves
21 These are the ordinances that you shall set before them:
2 When you buy a male Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years, but in the seventh he shall go out a free person, without debt. 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 if the slave declares, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out a free person’, 6 then his master shall bring him before God.[a] He shall be brought to the door or the doorpost; and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him for life.
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- Exodus 21:6 Or to the judges
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.