Slaves to be Free

⁸ This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord after the king Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people who were in Jerusalem to proclaim liberty to them: ⁹ that every man should let his male slave and every man his female slave, being a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, go free so that no one should keep them, a Jew his brother, in bondage. ¹⁰ Now when all the officials and all the people who had entered into the covenant heard that everyone should let his male slave and everyone his female slave go free, so that no one should keep them any more in bondage, then they obeyed and let them go. ¹¹ But afterward they turned around and caused the male slaves and the female slaves whom they had set free to return, and brought them into subjection for male slaves and female slaves.