¹⁰ I also, with my brethren and my servants, am lending them money and grain. Please, let us stop this ^[a]usury! ¹¹ Restore now to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their olive groves, and their houses, also a hundredth of the money and the grain, the new wine and the oil, that you have charged them.”

¹² So they said, “We will restore it, and will require nothing from them; we will do as you say.”

Then I called the priests, ^(A)and required an oath from them that they would do according to this promise.

Treacherous Treatment of Slaves

⁸ This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people who were at Jerusalem to proclaim ^(A)liberty to them: ^9 (B)that every man should set free his male and female slave—a Hebrew man or woman—^(C)that no one should keep a Jewish brother in bondage. ¹⁰ Now when all the princes and all the people, who had entered into the covenant, heard that everyone should set free his male and female slaves, that no one should keep them in bondage anymore, they obeyed and let them go. ¹¹ But afterward they changed their minds and made the male and female slaves return, whom they had set free, and brought them into subjection as male and female slaves.

Honor Masters

6 Let as many ^(A)bondservants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and His doctrine may not be blasphemed.