1. NOW THESE are the ordinances you [Moses] shall set before [the Israelites].
2. If you buy a Hebrew servant [as the result of debt or theft], he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, paying nothing. [Lev. 25:39.]
3. If he came [to you] by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he came married, then his wife shall go out with him.
4. If his master has given him a wife and she has borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out [of your service] alone.
5. But if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go free,
6. Then his master shall bring him to God [the judges as His agents]; he shall bring him to the door or doorpost and shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him for life.
7. If a man sells his daughter to be a maidservant or bondwoman, she shall not go out [in six years] as menservants do.
8. If she does not please her master who has not espoused her to himself, he shall let her be redeemed. To sell her to a foreign people he shall have no power, for he has dealt faithlessly with her.
9. And if he espouses her to his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter.
10. If he marries again, her food, clothing, and privilege as a wife shall he not diminish.
11. And if he does not do these three things for her, then shall she go out free, without payment of money.
12. Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death.