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 

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 

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.

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.

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

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 

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

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

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 

“Because ¹  you have acted like a wanton prostitute ²  – a seductive mistress who practices sorcery, ³  who ⁴  enslaves ⁵  nations by her harlotry, ⁶  and entices peoples by her sorcery ⁷  –

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.

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

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

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 

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.

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

Old and new wine take away the understanding of my people. ¹ 

and all were baptized ¹  into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,

When the time for them to be rescued comes,” ¹  says the Lord who rules over all, ²  “I will rescue you from foreign subjugation. ³  I will deliver you from captivity. ⁴  Foreigners will then no longer subjugate them.

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