Exodus 21:1-6

1 “These are the laws you are to set before them:

Hebrew Servants

2 “If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything.
3 If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him.
4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.
5 “But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,’
6 then his master must take him before the judges.[a] He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life.

Cross References 7

  • 1. Exodus 24:3; Exodus 34:32; Deuteronomy 4:14; Deuteronomy 6:1
  • 2. Exodus 22:3
  • 3. ver 7; Jeremiah 34:8,14
  • 4. Deuteronomy 15:16
  • 5. Exodus 22:8-9; Deuteronomy 17:9; Deuteronomy 19:17; Deuteronomy 25:1
  • 6. Psalms 40:6
  • 7. Job 39:9; Job 41:4; Nehemiah 5:5

Footnotes 1

Scripture quoted by permission.  Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®.  NIV®.  Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica.  All rights reserved worldwide.