Exodus 21:1-6 ▼

1 “Now these are the ordinances which you are to set before them:

2 “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.

3 If he comes alone, he shall leave 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 alone.

5 But if 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 God, then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently.