Although these false teachers promise ¹  such people ²  freedom, they themselves are enslaved to ³  immorality. ⁴  For whatever a person succumbs to, to that he is enslaved. ⁵ 

Formerly when you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods at all. ¹ 

So also we, when we were minors, ¹  were enslaved under the basic forces ²  of the world.

The trees of the field will yield their fruit and the earth will yield its crops. They will live securely on their land; they will know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the hand of those who enslaved them.

For many nations and great kings will make slaves of the king of Babylon and his nation ¹  too. I will repay them for all they have done!’” ² 

But God spoke as follows: ‘Your ¹  descendants will be foreigners ²  in a foreign country, whose citizens will enslave them and mistreat them for four hundred years. ³ 

But now, freed ¹  from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit ²  leading to sanctification, and the end is eternal life.

Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain ¹  that your descendants will be strangers ²  in a foreign country. ³  They will be enslaved and oppressed ⁴  for four hundred years.

But now that you have come to know God (or rather to be known by God), how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless ¹  basic forces? ²  Do you want to be enslaved to them all over again? ³ 

All the people and their leaders had agreed to this. They had agreed to free their male and female slaves and not keep them enslaved any longer. They originally complied with the covenant and freed them. ¹ 

We know that ¹  our old man was crucified with him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us, ²  so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

For we too were once foolish, disobedient, misled, enslaved to various passions and desires, spending our lives in evil and envy, hateful and hating one another.

“We are descendants ¹  of Abraham,” they replied, ²  “and have never been anyone’s slaves! How can you say, ³  ‘You will become free’?”

But if they are bound in chains, ¹  and held captive by the cords of affliction,

The Lord is just; he cut the ropes of the wicked.” ¹ 

and having been freed from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.

You were bought with a price. Do not become slaves of men.

I ¹  have also heard ²  the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, ³  and I have remembered my covenant. ⁴ 

When the Lord gives you relief from your suffering and anxiety, ¹  and from the hard labor which you were made to perform,

Everyone was supposed to free their male and female Hebrew slaves. No one was supposed to keep a fellow Judean enslaved. ¹