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."

  • Ephesians 6:5: Instructions to slaves in the New Testament.

    • "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ."

  • Exodus 21:

    • 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.

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