Exodus 21:1-11

Legacy Standard Bible

Judgments About Slaves

21 “Now these are the ^(A)judgments which you are to set before them:

² “If you buy ^(B)a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years; but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment. ³ If he comes ^[a]alone, he shall go out ^[b]alone; if he is the husband of a wife, 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 belong to her master, and he shall go out ^[c]alone. ⁵ But ^(C)if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out as a free man,’ ⁶ then his master shall bring him to ^[d]God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. Then his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently.

⁷ “^(D)And if a man sells his daughter as a female slave, she is not to ^[e]go free ^(E)as the male slaves ^[f]do. ⁸ If she is ^[g]displeasing in the eyes of her master ^[h]who designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He does not have authority to sell her to a foreign people because of his treachery to her. ⁹ And if he designates her for his son, he shall do to her according to the custom of daughters. ¹⁰ If he takes for himself another woman, he may not reduce her ^[i]food, her clothing, or ^(F)her conjugal rights. ¹¹ And if he will not do these three things for her, then she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.