Leviticus 25:38-46

English Standard Version

³⁸^(A)I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.

³⁹^(B)“If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: ⁴⁰he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. ⁴¹^(C)Then he shall go out from you, ^(D)he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return ^(E)to the possession of his fathers. ⁴²For they are ^(F)my servants,^[a] whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. ⁴³^(G)You shall not rule over him ^(H)ruthlessly but ^(I)shall fear your God. ⁴⁴As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. ⁴⁵^(J)You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. ⁴⁶You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel ^(K)you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.