Leviticus 25:39-46

Revised Standard Version

³⁹ “And 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 servant and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee; ⁴¹ then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own family, and return to the possession of his fathers. ⁴² For they are my servants, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. ⁴³ You shall not rule over him with harshness, but shall fear your God. ⁴⁴ As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are round about you. ⁴⁵ You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their families that are with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property. ⁴⁶ You may bequeath them to your sons after you, to inherit as a possession for ever; you may make slaves of them, but over your brethren the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another, with harshness.