Leviticus 25:40-53

⁴⁰Treat him as a hired servant. He must be like someone living temporarily with you. He will serve with you until the year of Jubilee.

⁴¹Then he will go away from you, he and his children with him, and he will return to his own family and to his fathers' property.

⁴²For they are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. They will not be sold as slaves.

⁴³You must not rule over them harshly, but you must honor your God.

⁴⁴As for your male and female slaves, whom you can obtain from the nations who live around you, you may buy slaves from them.

⁴⁵You may also buy slaves from the foreigners who are living among you, that is, from their families who are with you, children who have been born in your land. They may become your property.

⁴⁶You may provide such slaves as an inheritance for your children after you, to hold as property, and make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your brothers among the people of Israel with harshness.

⁴⁷If a foreigner or someone living temporarily with you has become wealthy, and if one of your fellow Israelites has become poor and sells himself to that foreigner, or to someone in a foreigner's family,

⁴⁸after your fellow Israelite has been bought, he may be bought back. Someone in his family may redeem him.

⁴⁹It might be the person's uncle, or his uncle's son, who redeems him, or anyone who is his close relative from his family. Or, if he has become prosperous, he may redeem himself.

⁵⁰He must bargain with the man who bought him; they must count the years from the year he sold himself to his purchaser until the year of Jubilee. The price of his redemption must be figured in keeping with the rate paid to a hired servant, for the number of years he might continue to work for the one who bought him.

⁵¹If there are still many years until the year of Jubilee, he must pay back as the price for his redemption an amount of money that is in proportion to the number of those years.

⁵²If there are only a few years to the year of Jubilee, then he must bargain with his purchaser to reflect the number of years left before the year of Jubilee, and he must pay for his redemption in keeping with the number of years.

⁵³He is to be treated like a man hired year by year. You must make sure he is not treated with harshness.