Leviticus 25:35-55

Easy-to-Read Version

Rules for Slave Owners

³⁵ “If anyone from your own country becomes too poor to support themselves, you must let them live with you like a visitor. ³⁶ Don’t charge them any interest on money you might loan to them. Respect your God and let those from your own country live with you. ³⁷ Don’t charge them interest on any money you lend them. And don’t try to make a profit from the food you sell them. ³⁸ I am the Lord your God. I brought you out of the land of Egypt to give the land of Canaan to you and to become your God.

³⁹ “If anyone from your own country becomes so poor that they must sell themselves to you, don’t make them work like slaves. ⁴⁰ They will be like hired workers and visitors with you until the year of Jubilee. ⁴¹ Then they can leave you, take their children, and go back to their family. They can go back to the property of their ancestors, ⁴² because they are my servants. I brought them out of slavery in Egypt. They must not become slaves again. ⁴³ You must not be a cruel master to them. You must respect your God.

⁴⁴ “About your men and women slaves: You may get men and women slaves from the other nations around you. ⁴⁵ Also, you may get children as slaves if they come from the families of the foreigners living in your land. These child slaves will belong to you. ⁴⁶ You may even pass these foreign slaves on to your children after you die so that they will belong to them. They will be your slaves forever. You may make slaves of these foreigners. But you must not be a cruel master over your own brothers, the Israelites.

⁴⁷ “Maybe a foreigner or visitor among you becomes rich. Or maybe someone from your own country becomes so poor that they sell themselves as slaves to a foreigner living among you or to a member of a foreigner’s family. ⁴⁸ These people have the right to be bought back and become free. Someone from their own country can buy them back. ⁴⁹ Or their uncle, their cousin, or one of their close relatives from their family can buy him back. Or if they get enough money, they can pay the money themselves and become free again.

⁵⁰ “You must count the years from the time they sold themselves to the foreigner up to the next year of Jubilee. Use that number to decide the price, because really the person only ‘hired’ them for a few years. ⁵¹ If there are still many years before the year of Jubilee, the one sold must give back a large part of the price. It all depends on the number of years. ⁵² If only a few years are left until the year of Jubilee, the one who was sold must pay a small part of the original price. ⁵³ But that person will live like a hired worker with the foreigner every year. Don’t let the foreigner be a cruel master over that person.

⁵⁴ “Those who sold themselves will become free, even if no one buys them back. At the year of Jubilee, they and their children will become free. ⁵⁵ This is because the Israelites are my servants. They are the servants who I brought out of slavery in Egypt. I am the Lord your God!