⁵ Now ^(A)our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers, our children are as their children. Yet ^(B)we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but it is not in our power to help it, for other men have our fields and our vineyards.”

Elisha and the Widow's Oil

4 Now the wife of one of the ^(A)sons of the prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord, ^(B)but the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.”

^39 (A)“If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: ⁴⁰ he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. ^41 (B)Then he shall go out from you, ^(C)he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return ^(D)to the possession of his fathers. ⁴² For they are ^(E)my servants,^[a] whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. ^43 (F)You shall not rule over him ^(G)ruthlessly but ^(H)shall fear your God.

²⁷ Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and ^(A)let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers listened to him.

⁵ Listen, my beloved brothers, ^(A)has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be ^(B)rich in faith and heirs of ^(C)the kingdom, ^(D)which he has promised to those who love him? ⁶ But you ^(E)have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who ^(F)drag you ^(G)into court?

^25 (A)And since he could not pay, his master ordered him ^(B)to be sold, with his wife and ^(C)children and all that he had, and payment to be made.

Laws About Slaves

21 “Now these are the ^(A)rules that you shall set before them. ^2 (B)When you buy a Hebrew slave,^[a] he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. ³ If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. ⁴ If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out alone. ⁵ But ^(C)if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ ⁶ then his master shall bring him to ^(D)God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.

⁷ “When a man ^(E)sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. ⁸ If she does not please her master, who has designated her^[b] for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. ⁹ If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. ¹⁰ If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or ^(F)her marital rights. ¹¹ And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.

¹⁴ and Laban said to him, ^(A)“Surely you are my bone and my flesh!” And he stayed with him a month.