חׇפְשִׁי

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.

But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children; I do not want to go free,’

If a man strikes and blinds the eye of his manservant or maidservant, he must let the servant go free as compensation for the eye.

And if he knocks out the tooth of his manservant or maidservant, he must let the servant go free as compensation for the tooth.

If a fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you must set him free.

And when you release him, do not send him away empty-handed.

Do not regard it as a hardship to set your servant free, because his six years of service were worth twice the wages of a hired hand. And the LORD your God will bless you in all you do.

Now the men of Israel had been saying, “Do you see how this man keeps coming out to defy Israel? To the man who kills him the king will give great riches. And he will give him his daughter in marriage and exempt his father’s house from taxation in Israel.”

Both small and great are there, and the slave is freed from his master.

Who set the wild donkey free? Who released the swift donkey from the harness?

I am forsaken among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom You remember no more, who are cut off from Your care.

Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen: to break the chains of wickedness, to untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and tear off every yoke?

…that each man should free his Hebrew slaves, both male and female, and no one should hold his fellow Jew in bondage.

So all the officials and all the people who entered into this covenant agreed that they would free their menservants and maidservants and no longer hold them in bondage. They obeyed and released them,

…but later they changed their minds and took back the menservants and maidservants they had freed, and they forced them to become slaves again.

Every seventh year, each of you must free his Hebrew brother who has sold himself to you. He may serve you six years, but then you must let him go free. But your fathers did not listen or incline their ear.

But now you have changed your minds and profaned My name. Each of you has taken back the menservants and maidservants whom you had set at liberty to go wherever they wanted, and you have again forced them to be your slaves.