15. I am commanding you to obey the Lord as a reminder that you were slaves in Egypt before he set you free.
16. But one of your slaves may say, “I love you and your family, and I would be better off staying with you, so please don't make me leave.”
17. Take the slave to the door of your house and push a sharp metal rod through one ear lobe and into the door. Such slaves will belong to you for life, whether they are men or women.
18. Don't complain when you have to set a slave free. After all, you got six years of service at half the cost of hiring someone to do the work.
19. If the firstborn animal of a cow or sheep or goat is a male, it must be given to the Lord. Don't put firstborn cattle to work or cut wool from firstborn sheep.
20. Instead, each year you must take the firstborn of these animals to the place where the Lord your God chooses to be worshipped. You and your family will sacrifice them to the Lord and then eat them as part of a sacred meal.
21. But if the animal is lame or blind or has something else wrong with it, you must not sacrifice it to the Lord your God.
22. You can butcher it where you live, and eat it just like the meat of a deer or gazelle that you kill while hunting. Even those people who are unclean and unfit for worship can have some.