Exodus 21:1-6

Judgments About Slaves

“Now these are the ^ajudgments which you are to set before them:
2 “If you buy ^aa Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years; but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment. 3 If he comes ¹alone, he shall go out ¹alone; if he is the husband of a wife, 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 belong to her master, and he shall go out ¹alone. 5 But ^aif the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out as a free man,’ 6 then his master shall bring him to ¹God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. Then his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently.