He will demand a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will be his servants.

If he is able to fight with me and strike me down, we will become your servants. But if I prevail against him and strike him down, you will become our servants and will serve us.”

If one of us has it, ¹  he will die, and the rest of us will become my lord’s slaves!”

Then his brothers also came and threw themselves down before him; they said, “Here we are; we are your slaves.”

Yet they will become his subjects, so they can experience how serving me differs from serving the surrounding nations.” ¹ 

David placed garrisons in the territory of the Arameans of Damascus; the Arameans became David’s subjects and brought tribute. The Lord protected ¹  David wherever he campaigned. ² 

Solomon did not assign Israelites to these work crews; ¹  the Israelites served as his soldiers, officers, charioteers, and commanders of his chariot forces. ² 

And now you are planning ¹  to enslave ²  the people ³  of Judah and Jerusalem. Yet are you not also guilty before the Lord your God?

He deported to Babylon all who escaped the sword. They served him and his sons until the Persian kingdom rose to power.

For we have been sold ¹  – both I and my people – to destruction and to slaughter and to annihilation! If we had simply been sold as male and female slaves, I would have remained silent, for such distress would not have been sufficient for troubling the king.”

Nations will take them and bring them back to their own place. Then the family of Jacob will make foreigners their servants as they settle in the Lord’s land. ¹  They will make their captors captives and rule over the ones who oppressed them.

But later ¹  they had changed their minds. They had taken back their male and female slaves that they had freed and forced them to be slaves again. ² 

Isaac replied to Esau, “Look! I have made him lord over you. I have made all his relatives his servants and provided him with grain and new wine. What is left that I can do for you, my son?”

But the men were afraid when they were brought to Joseph’s house. They said, “We are being brought in because of ¹  the money that was returned in our sacks last time. ²  He wants to capture us, ³  make us slaves, and take ⁴  our donkeys!”

Then the Lord will make you return to Egypt by ship, over a route I said to you that you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

He defeated the Moabites. He made them lie on the ground and then used a rope to measure them off. He put two-thirds of them to death and spared the other third. ¹  The Moabites became David’s subjects and brought tribute. ² 

Now a wife of one of the prophets ¹  appealed ²  to Elisha for help, saying, “Your servant, my husband is dead. You know that your servant was a loyal follower of the Lord. ³  Now the creditor is coming to take away my two boys to be his servants.”

Joab replied, “May the Lord make his army ¹  a hundred times larger! My master, O king, do not all of them serve my master? Why does my master want to do this? Why bring judgment on Israel?” ² 

And now, though we share the same flesh and blood as our fellow countrymen, ¹  and our children are just like their children, ²  still we have found it necessary to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. ³  Some of our daughters have been subjected to slavery, while we are powerless to help, ⁴  since our fields and vineyards now belong to other people.” ⁵ 

As for foreigners who become followers of ¹  the Lord and serve him, who love the name of the Lord and want to be his servants – all who observe the Sabbath and do not defile it, and who are faithful to ²  my covenant –