³⁹ ‘Now ^(A)if a countryman of yours becomes so poor with regard to you that he sells himself to you, you shall not subject him to a slave’s service. ⁴⁰ He shall be with you as a hired worker, ^(B)as if he were a foreign resident; he shall serve with you up to the year of jubilee. ⁴¹ He shall then leave you, he and his sons with him, and shall go back to his family, so that he may return to the property of his forefathers.

⁴⁸ then he shall have redemption right after he has been sold. One of his brothers may redeem him,

² Then everyone who was in distress, and everyone who ^[a]was in debt, and everyone who was ^[b]discontented gathered to him; and he became captain over them. Now there were ^(A)about four hundred men with him.

² For there were those who said, “We, our sons, and our daughters are many; therefore let’s ^(A)get grain so that we may eat and live.” ³ And there were others who said, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses so that we might get grain because of the famine.” ⁴ There also were those who said, “We have borrowed money ^(B)for the king’s tax on our fields and our vineyards. ⁵ And now ^(C)our flesh is like the flesh of our brothers, our children like their children. Yet behold, ^(D)we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters are forced into bondage already, and ^[a]we are helpless because our fields and vineyards belong to others.”