Exo 21:2-6 | NASB2020 | STEP | “If you buy a Hebrew slave , he shall serve for six years ; but on the seventh he shall leave as a free man without a payment to you.

a Lev 25:39-43; Deut 15:12-18; Jer 34:14

Exodus 21:2-6

2 “If you buy ^aa Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years; but on the seventh he shall leave as a free man without a payment to you. 3 If he comes ^{▼▼Lit by himself}alone, he shall leave ^{▼▼Lit by himself}alone; if he is the husband of a wife, then his wife shall leave with him. 4 If 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 leave ^{▼▼Lit by himself}alone. 5 But ^eif the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not leave as a free man,’ 6 then his master shall bring him to ^{▼▼Or the judges (who acted in God’s name)}God, then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an ^{▼▼I.e., a pointed tool}awl; and he shall serve him permanently.