Treacherous Treatment of Slaves

⁸ This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people who were at Jerusalem to proclaim ^(A)liberty to them:

¹⁰ And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and ^(A)proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; ^(B)and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family.

¹⁷ “Therefore thus says the Lord: ‘You have not obeyed Me in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother and every one to his neighbor. ^(A)Behold, I proclaim liberty to you,’ says the Lord—^(B)‘to the sword, to pestilence, and to famine! And I will deliver you to ^(C)trouble among all the kingdoms of the earth.

² The king went up to the house of the Lord with all the men of Judah, and with him all the inhabitants of Jerusalem—the priests and the prophets and all the people, both small and great. And he ^(A)read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant ^(B)which had been found in the house of the Lord.

³ Then the king ^(C)stood by a pillar and made a ^(D)covenant before the Lord, to follow the Lord and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people took a stand for the covenant.

^17 (A)Then Jehoiada ^(B)made a covenant between the Lord, the king, and the people, that they should be the Lord’s people, and also ^(C)between the king and the people.

The Good News of Salvation

Nehemiah Deals with Oppression

5 And there was a great ^(A)outcry of the people and their wives against their ^(B)Jewish brethren. 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 ^(C)our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children; and indeed we ^(D)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.”

⁶ And I became very angry when I heard their outcry and these words. ⁷ After serious thought, I rebuked the nobles and rulers, and said to them, ^(E)“Each of you is ^[a]exacting usury from his brother.” So I ^[b]called a great assembly against them. ⁸ And I said to them, “According to our ability we have ^(F)redeemed our Jewish brethren who were sold to the nations. Now indeed, will you even sell your brethren? Or should they be sold to us?”

Then they were silenced and found nothing to say. ⁹ Then I said, “What you are doing is not good. Should you not walk ^(G)in the fear of our God ^(H)because of the reproach of the nations, our enemies? ¹⁰ I also, with my brethren and my servants, am lending them money and grain. Please, let us stop this ^[c]usury! ¹¹ Restore now to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their olive groves, and their houses, also a hundredth of the money and the grain, the new wine and the oil, that you have charged them.”

¹² So they said, “We will restore it, and will require nothing from them; we will do as you say.”

Then I called the priests, ^(I)and required an oath from them that they would do according to this promise. ¹³ Then ^(J)I shook out ^[d]the fold of my garment and said, “So may God shake out each man from his house, and from his property, who does not perform this promise. Even thus may he be shaken out and emptied.”

And all the assembly said, “Amen!” and praised the Lord. ^(K)Then the people did according to this promise.

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. ⁴² For they are ^(B)My servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. ^43 (C)You shall not rule over him ^(D)with ^[a]rigor, but you ^(E)shall fear your God. ⁴⁴ And as for your male and female slaves whom you may have—from the nations that are around you, from them you may buy male and female slaves. ⁴⁵ Moreover you may buy ^(F)the children of the strangers who dwell among you, and their families who are with you, which they beget in your land; and they shall become your property. ⁴⁶ And ^(G)you may take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them as a possession; they shall be your permanent slaves. But regarding your brethren, the children of Israel, you shall not rule over one another with rigor.

¹⁴ “At the end of ^(A)seven years let every man set free his Hebrew brother, who ^[a]has been sold to him; and when he has served you six years, you shall let him go free from you.” But your fathers did not obey Me nor incline their ear. ¹⁵ Then you ^[b]recently turned and did what was right in My sight—every man proclaiming liberty to his neighbor; and you ^(B)made a covenant before Me ^(C)in the house which is called by My name.