But again you have put shame on my name, and you have taken back, every one his man-servant and his servant-girl, whom you had sent away free, and you have put them under the yoke again to be your servants and servant-girls.

That every man was to let his Hebrew man-servant and his Hebrew servant-girl go free; so that no one might make use of a Jew, his countryman, as a servant:

Woe [to the one who] builds his house without righteousness, and his upper rooms without justice. His fellow countryman, he works for nothing, and he does not give to him his wages.

for thus says Yahweh concerning the king who sits on the throne of David and concerning all the people who live in this city, your fellow kinsmen who did not go with you into the exile--

"At [the] end of seven years you must let go each one his fellow countryman, the Hebrew who has been sold to you and who has served you six years, and you must let him go free from you." But your ancestors did not listen to me, and they did not incline their ears.

"{Therefore} thus says Yahweh, 'You have not listened to me to proclaim release each one to his fellow countryman and each one to his neighbor. Look, I [am] going to proclaim to you a release,' {declares} Yahweh, 'to the sword, to the plague, and to the famine, and I will make you a terror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

But ten men were found among them, and they said to Ishmael, "You must not kill us, for {we have} hidden treasures in the field, wheat, and barley, and oil, and honey. So he refrained and he did not kill them in the midst of their fellow countrymen.

But later, they took back again the servants and the servant-girls whom they had let go free, and put them again under the yoke as servants and servant-girls.

Recently, however, you yourselves showed a change of heart and did what is pleasing to me. You granted your fellow countrymen their freedom and you made a covenant to that effect in my presence in the house that I have claimed for my own.

And this was done by all the rulers and the people who had taken part in the agreement, and every one let his man-servant and his servant-girl go free, not to be used as servants any longer; they did so, and let them go.

Is Israel a servant? has he been a house-servant from birth? why has he been made waste?