'Slaves' in the Bible

So he said, "Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves he will be to his brothers."

Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, as well as his wife and female slaves so that they were able to have children.

But the men were afraid when they were brought to Joseph's house. They said, "We are being brought in because of the money that was returned in our sacks last time. He wants to capture us, make us slaves, and take our donkeys!"

If one of us has it, he will die, and the rest of us will become my lord's slaves!"

Judah replied, "What can we say to my lord? What can we speak? How can we clear ourselves? God has exposed the sin of your servants! We are now my lord's slaves, we and the one in whose possession the cup was found."

Why should we die before your very eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land in exchange for food, and we, with our land, will become Pharaoh's slaves. Give us seed that we may live and not die. Then the land will not become desolate."

Joseph made all the people slaves from one end of Egypt's border to the other end of it.

They replied, "You have saved our lives! You are showing us favor, and we will be Pharaoh's slaves."

Then his brothers also came and threw themselves down before him; they said, "Here we are; we are your slaves."

"'As for your male and female slaves who may belong to you -- you may buy male and female slaves from the nations all around you.

Also you may buy slaves from the children of the foreigners who reside with you, and from their families that are with you, whom they have fathered in your land, they may become your property.

I am the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from being their slaves, and I broke the bars of your yoke and caused you to walk upright.

but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. On that day you must not do any work, you, your son, your daughter, your male slave, your female slave, your ox, your donkey, any other animal, or the foreigner who lives with you, so that your male and female slaves, like yourself, may have rest.

Recall that you were slaves in the land of Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there by strength and power. That is why the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.

you must say to them, "We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt in a powerful way.

You shall rejoice before him -- you, your son, your daughter, your male and female slaves, the Levites in your villages, the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows among you -- in the place where the Lord chooses to locate his name.

You are to rejoice in your festival, you, your son, your daughter, your male and female slaves, the Levites, the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows who are in your villages.

If it accepts your terms and submits to you, all the people found in it will become your slaves.

Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I am commanding you to do all this.

Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt; therefore, I am commanding you to do all this.

Then the Lord will make you return to Egypt by ship, over a route I said to you that you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you."

Although we are slaves, our God has not abandoned us in our servitude. He has extended kindness to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, in that he has revived us to restore the temple of our God and to raise up its ruins and to give us a protective wall in Judah and Jerusalem.

"So today we are slaves! In the very land you gave to our ancestors to eat its fruit and to enjoy its good things -- we are slaves!

For we have been sold -- both I and my people -- to destruction and to slaughter and to annihilation! If we had simply been sold as male and female slaves, I would have remained silent, for such distress would not have been sufficient for troubling the king."

I purchased male and female slaves, and I owned slaves who were born in my house; I also possessed more livestock -- both herds and flocks -- than any of my predecessors in Jerusalem.

I have seen slaves on horseback and princes walking on foot like slaves.

For many nations and great kings will make slaves of the king of Babylon and his nation too. I will repay them for all they have done!'"

The Lord spoke to Jeremiah after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to grant their slaves their freedom.

Everyone was supposed to free their male and female Hebrew slaves. No one was supposed to keep a fellow Judean enslaved.

All the people and their leaders had agreed to this. They had agreed to free their male and female slaves and not keep them enslaved any longer. They originally complied with the covenant and freed them.

But later they had changed their minds. They had taken back their male and female slaves that they had freed and forced them to be slaves again.

"The Lord God of Israel has a message for you. 'I made a covenant with your ancestors when I brought them out of Egypt where they had been slaves. It stipulated,

But then you turned right around and showed that you did not honor me. Each of you took back your male and female slaves whom you had freed as they desired, and you forced them to be your slaves again.

Slaves rule over us; there is no one to rescue us from their power.

So take note, I am about to make you slaves of the tribes of the east. They will make camps among you and pitch their tents among you. They will eat your fruit and drink your milk.

Javan, Tubal, and Meshech were your clients; they exchanged slaves and bronze items for your merchandise.

"I am about to punish them in such a way," he says, "that they will be looted by their own slaves." Then you will know that the Lord who rules over all has sent me.