The Law Concerning Slavery

³⁹ ‘And if one of your brethren who dwells by you becomes poor, and sells himself to you, you shall not compel him to serve as a slave. ⁴⁰ As a hired servant and a sojourner he shall be with you, and shall serve you until the Year of Jubilee. ⁴¹ And then he shall depart from you—he and his children ^(A)with him—and shall return to his own family. He shall return to the possession of his fathers.

⁴⁸ after he is sold he may be redeemed again. One of his brothers may redeem him;

^2 (A)And everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was ^[a]discontented gathered to him. So he became captain over them. And there were about ^(B)four hundred men with him.

² For there were those who said, “We, our sons, and our daughters are many; therefore let us get grain, that we may eat and live.”

³ There were also some who said, “We have mortgaged our lands and vineyards and houses, that we might buy grain because of the famine.”

⁴ There were also those who said, “We have borrowed money for the king’s tax on our lands and vineyards. ⁵ Yet now ^(A)our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children; and indeed we ^(B)are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters have been brought into slavery. It is not in our power to redeem them, for other men have our lands and vineyards.”

²⁵ But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded ^(A)that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made.