Jeremiah 34:8-22 - Zedekiah's Covenant Concerning Slaves

⁸ The word which was to Jeremiah from Jehovah after king Zedekiah cut out a covenant with all the people which were in Jerusalem, to call to them liberty; ⁹ For a man to send away his servant, and a man his maid, the Hebrew or the Hebrewess, free; for a man not to serve with them with a Jew his brother. ¹⁰ And all the chiefs will hear, and all the people which came into the covenant, to send away a man his servant and a man his maid, free, no more to serve with them, and they will hear and will send away. ¹¹ And they will turn back after this, and they will cause their servants and their maids to turn back whom they sent away free, and they subdued them for servants and for maids.

¹² And the word of Jehovah will be to Jeremiah from Jehovah, saying, ¹³ Thus said Jehovah, God of Israel, I cut out a covenant with your fathers in the day of my bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of servants, saying, ¹⁴ From the end of seven years ye shall send away a man his brother, the Hebrew who shall be sold to thee, and serving thee six years, and send him away free from thee; and your fathers heard not to me and inclined not their ear ¹⁵ And ye will turn back to-day and do the straight in mine eyes, to call liberty a man to his neighbor; and ye will cut out a covenant before me in the house which my name was called upon it ¹⁶ And ye will turn back and pollute my name, and ye will cause to turn back a man his servant and a man his maid, whom ye sent away free to their soul, and ye will subdue them to be to you for servants and for maids

¹⁷ For this, thus said Jehovah, Ye heard not to me to call liberty, a man to his brother and a man to his neighbor behold me calling to you lliberty, says Jehovah, to the sword, to the death and to the famine; and I gave you for agitation to all the kingdoms of the earth. ¹⁸ And I gave the men passing by my covenant who raised not up the words of the covenant which they cut out before me, the calf which they cut in two, and they will pass through between its parts. ¹⁹ The chiefs of Judah, and the chiefs of Jerusalem, the eunuchs and the priests, and all the people of the land passing between the parts of the calf. ²⁰ And I gave them into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those seeking their soul; and their corpses were for food to the birds of the heavens and to the beasts of the earth. ²¹ And Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his chiefs, I will give into the hand of their enemies, and, into the hand of those seeking their soul, and into the hand of the army of the king of Babel going up from you. ²² Behold me commanding, says Jehovah; and I turned them back to this city, and they warred against it and took it, and burnt it in fire: and the cities of Judah will I give to desolation from none inhabiting.