Exodus 21:1-11

1 "Now these are the ordinances which you shall set before them.
2 When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing.
3 If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, 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 be her master's and he shall go out alone.
5 But if the slave plainly says, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,'
6 then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him for life.
7 "When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do.
8 If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed; he shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt faithlessly with her.
9 If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter.
10 If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights.
11 And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.