Leviticus 25:39-26:2

New King James Version

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. ⁴⁰As a hired servant and a sojourner he shall be with you, and shall serve you until the Year of Jubilee. ⁴¹And 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. ⁴²For 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. ⁴⁴And 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. ⁴⁵Moreover 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. ⁴⁶And ^(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.

⁴⁷‘Now if a sojourner or stranger close to you becomes rich, and one of your brethren who dwells by him becomes poor, and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner close to you, or to a member of the stranger’s family, ⁴⁸after he is sold he may be redeemed again. One of his brothers may redeem him; ⁴⁹or his uncle or his uncle’s son may redeem him; or anyone who is near of kin to him in his family may redeem him; or if he is able he may redeem himself. ⁵⁰Thus he shall reckon with him who bought him: The price of his release shall be according to the number of years, from the year that he was sold to him until the Year of Jubilee; it shall be ^(H)according to the time of a hired servant for him. ⁵¹If there are still many years remaining, according to them he shall repay the price of his redemption from the money with which he was bought. ⁵²And if there remain but a few years until the Year of Jubilee, then he shall reckon with him, and according to his years he shall repay him the price of his redemption. ⁵³He shall be with him as a yearly hired servant, and he shall not rule with rigor over him in your sight. ⁵⁴And if he is not redeemed in these years, then he shall be released in the Year of Jubilee—he and his children with him. ⁵⁵For the children of Israel are servants to Me; they are My servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.