Study Desk

"Now these are the ordinances which you are to set before them:

Now these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them.

"If you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years; but on the seventh he shall leave as a free man without a payment to you.

If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.

"If he comes alone, he shall leave alone; if he is the husband of a wife, then his wife shall leave with him.

If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him.

"If his master gives him a wife, and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall belong to her master, and he shall leave alone.

If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself.

"But if the slave plainly says, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not leave as a free man,'

And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free:

then his master shall bring him to God, then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently.

Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever.

"Now if a man sells his daughter as a female slave, she is not to go free as the male slaves do.

And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do.

"If she is displeasing in the eyes of her master who designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He does not have authority to sell her to a foreign people, because of his unfairness to her.

If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her.

"And if he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her according to the custom of daughters.

And if he have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters.

"If he takes to himself another woman, he may not reduce her food, her clothing, or her conjugal rights.

If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish.

"But if he will not do these three things for her, then she shall go free for nothing, without payment of money.

And if he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out free without money.