Slavery & Servitude
Deuteronomy 20 (Enslave if Peace, Otherwise Kill)
[10] "When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it.
[11] And if its answer to you is peace and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. [12] But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it; [13] and when the LORD your God gives it into your hand you shall put all its males to the sword, [14] but the women and the little ones, the cattle, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for yourselves; and you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you. [15] Thus you shall do to all the cities which are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here. [16] But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, [17] but you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Per'izzites, the Hivites and the Jeb'usites, as the LORD your God has commanded; [18] that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices which they have done in the service of their gods, and so to sin against the LORD your God. [19] "When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them; for you may eat of them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field men that they should be besieged by you? [20] Only the trees which you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down that you may build siegeworks against the city that makes war with you, until it falls.
Deuteronomy 21
[10] "When you go forth to war against your enemies, and the LORD your God gives them into your hands, and you take them captive, [11] and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you have desire for her and would take her for yourself as wife, [12] then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and pare her nails. [13] And she shall put off her captive's garb, and shall remain in your house and bewail her father and her mother a full month; after that you may go in to her, and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.
Leviticus 25:44-46: Regulations regarding the treatment of slaves.
"Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property."
[2] When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. [3] If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. [4] If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's and he shall go out alone. [5] But if the slave plainly says, `I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,' [6] then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him for life.
[7] “When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do.
[8] If she does not please her master, who has designated her[a] for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed; he shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt faithlessly with her.
[20] "When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. [21] But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be punished; for the slave is his property
NEW TESTAMENT
[22] Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing the Lord. [23] Whatever your task, work heartily, as serving the Lord and not men, [24] knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you are serving the Lord Christ.
[1] Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be defamed. [2] Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful on the ground that they are brethren; rather they must serve all the better since those who benefit by their service are believers and beloved. Teach and urge these duties. [3] If any one teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching which accords with godliness, [4] he is puffed up with conceit, he knows nothing; he has a morbid craving for controversy and for disputes about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions, [5] and wrangling among men who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.
[5] Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as to Christ;
[18] Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to the kind and gentle but also to the overbearing. [19] For one is approved if, mindful of God, he endures pain while suffering unjustly. [20] For what credit is it, if when you do wrong and are beaten for it you take it patiently? But if when you do right and suffer for it you take it patiently, you have God's approval. [21] For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.
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