40. They will be like hired workers and visitors with you until the year of Jubilee.
41. Then they can leave you, take their children, and go back to their family. They can go back to the property of their ancestors,
42. because they are my servants. I brought them out of slavery in Egypt. They must not become slaves again.
43. You must not be a cruel master to them. You must respect your God.
44. “About your men and women slaves: You may get men and women slaves from the other nations around you.
45. Also, you may get children as slaves if they come from the families of the foreigners living in your land. These child slaves will belong to you.
46. You may even pass these foreign slaves on to your children after you die so that they will belong to them. They will be your slaves forever. You may make slaves of these foreigners. But you must not be a cruel master over your own brothers, the Israelites.
47. “Maybe a foreigner or visitor among you becomes rich. Or maybe someone from your own country becomes so poor that they sell themselves as slaves to a foreigner living among you or to a member of a foreigner’s family.
48. These people have the right to be bought back and become free. Someone from their own country can buy them back.
49. Or their uncle, their cousin, or one of their close relatives from their family can buy him back. Or if they get enough money, they can pay the money themselves and become free again.
50. “You must count the years from the time they sold themselves to the foreigner up to the next year of Jubilee. Use that number to decide the price, because really the person only ‘hired’ them for a few years.
51. If there are still many years before the year of Jubilee, the one sold must give back a large part of the price. It all depends on the number of years.