New American Standard Bible 1995

Exodus 21:2-11

2“If you buy 1a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years; but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment. 3If he comes 2alone, he shall go out 3alone; if he is the husband of a wife, then his wife shall go out with him. 4If his master gives him a wife, and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall belong to her master, and he shall go out 4alone. 5But 5if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife and my children; I will not go out as a free man,’ 6then his master shall bring him to 6God, then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently.

7“7If a man sells his daughter as a female slave, she is not to 8go free 9as the male slaves 10do. 8If she is 11displeasing in the eyes of her master 12who designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He does not have authority to sell her to a foreign people because of his 13unfairness to her. 9If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her according to the custom of daughters. 10If he takes to himself another woman, he may not reduce her 14food, her clothing, or 15her conjugal rights. 11If he will not do these three things for her, then she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.

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Notes

1. Exodus 21:2 Lev 25:39-43; Deut 15:12-18; Jer 34:14 ↩
2. Exodus 21:3 Lit by himself ↩
3. Exodus 21:3 Lit by himself ↩
4. Exodus 21:4 Lit by himself ↩
5. Exodus 21:5 Deut 15:16, 17 ↩
6. Exodus 21:6 Or the judges who acted in God’s name ↩
7. Exodus 21:7 Neh 5:5 ↩
8. Exodus 21:7 Lit go out ↩
9. Exodus 21:7 Ex 21:2, 3 ↩
10. Exodus 21:7 Lit go out ↩
11. Exodus 21:8 Lit bad ↩
12. Exodus 21:8 Another reading is so that he did not designate her ↩
13. Exodus 21:8 Lit dealing treacherously ↩
14. Exodus 21:10 Lit flesh ↩
15. Exodus 21:10 1 Cor 7:3, 5 ↩

Notes

Commentaries on Exodus 21