¹⁰ Moreover I and my brothers and my servants are lending them money and grain. Let us stop this taking of interest. ¹¹ Restore to them, this very day, their fields, their vineyards, their olive orchards, and their houses, and the interest on money, grain, wine, and oil that you have been exacting from them.” ¹² Then they said, “We will restore everything and demand nothing more from them. We will do as you say.” And I called the priests and made them take an oath to do as they had promised.^(A)

Treacherous Treatment of Slaves

⁸ The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to make a proclamation of liberty to them,^{(A) 9} that all should set free their Hebrew slaves, male and female, so that no one should hold another Judean in slavery.^{(B) 10} And they obeyed, all the officials and all the people who had entered into the covenant that all would set free their slaves, male or female, so that they would not be enslaved again; they obeyed and set them free. ¹¹ But afterward they turned around and took back the male and female slaves they had set free and brought them again into subjection as slaves.

6 Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be blasphemed.^(A)