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.