If you set them free, you must not send them away empty-handed.

Small and great are ¹  there, and the slave is free ²  from his master. ³ 

Who let the wild donkey go free? Who released the bonds of the donkey,

¹ “If you buy ²  a Hebrew servant, ³  he is to serve you for six years, but in the seventh year he will go out free ⁴  without paying anything. ⁵ 

If he knocks out the tooth of his male servant or his female servant, he will let the servant ¹  go free as compensation for the tooth.

But if the servant should declare, ¹  ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out ²  free,’

“If a man strikes the eye of his male servant or his female servant so that he destroys it, ¹  he will let the servant ²  go free ³  as compensation for the eye.

If your fellow Hebrew ¹  – whether male or female ²  – is sold to you and serves you for six years, then in the seventh year you must let that servant ³  go free. ⁴ 

adrift ¹  among the dead, like corpses lying in the grave, whom you remember no more, and who are cut off from your power. ² 

No, this is the kind of fast I want. ¹  I want you ²  to remove the sinful chains, to tear away the ropes of the burdensome yoke, to set free the oppressed, ³  and to break every burdensome yoke.

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

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 

You should not consider it difficult to let him go free, for he will have served you for six years, twice ¹  the time of a hired worker; the Lord your God will bless you in everything you do.

The men of Israel said, “Have you seen this man who is coming up? He does so ¹  to defy Israel. But the king will make the man who can strike him down very wealthy! He will give him his daughter in marriage, and he will make his father’s house exempt from tax obligations in Israel.”

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 

“Every seven years each of you must free any fellow Hebrews who have sold themselves to you. After they have served you for six years, you shall set them free.” ¹  But your ancestors did not obey me or pay any attention to me.

But then you turned right around ¹  and showed that you did not honor me. ²  Each of you took back your male and female slaves whom you had freed as they desired, and you forced them to be your slaves again. ³