808 verses about slavery

He said, “Canaan is cursed. He will be a servant of servants to his brothers.”

He said, “Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Shem. Let Canaan be his servant.

May God enlarge Japheth. Let him dwell in the tents of Shem. Let Canaan be his servant.”

He dealt well with Abram for her sake. He had sheep, cattle, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.

They served Chedorlaomer for twelve years, and in the thirteenth year, they rebelled.

They took Lot, Abram’s brother’s son, who lived in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.

The king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the people, and take the goods for yourself.”

He said to Abram, “Know for sure that your offspring will live as foreigners in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them. They will afflict them four hundred years.

I will also judge that nation, whom they will serve. Afterward they will come out with great wealth,

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore him no children. She had a servant, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.

But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your maid is in your hand. Do to her whatever is good in your eyes.” Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her face.

He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s servant, where did you come from? Where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from the face of my mistress Sarai.”

Yahweh’s angel said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hands.”

He who is eight days old will be circumcised among you, every male throughout your generations, he who is born in the house, or bought with money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring.

He who is born in your house, and he who is bought with your money, must be circumcised. My covenant will be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.

All the men of his house, those born in the house, and those bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him.

Isaac answered Esau, “Behold, I have made him your lord, and all his brothers I have given to him for servants. I have sustained him with grain and new wine. What then will I do for you, my son?”

By your sword will you live, and you will serve your brother. It will happen, when you will break loose, that you shall shake his yoke from off your neck.”

Laban gave Zilpah his servant to his daughter Leah for a servant.

Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah, his servant, to be her servant.

She said, “Behold, my maid Bilhah. Go in to her, that she may bear on my knees, and I also may obtain children by her.”

She gave him Bilhah her servant as wife, and Jacob went in to her.

but when the flock were feeble, he didn’t put them in. So the feebler were Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s.

The man increased exceedingly, and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys.

Aren’t we considered as foreigners by him? For he has sold us, and has also used up our money.

and all their wealth. They took captive all their little ones and their wives, and took as plunder everything that was in the house.

They sat down to eat bread, and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites was coming from Gilead, with their camels bearing spices and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.

Come, and let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not let our hand be on him; for he is our brother, our flesh.” His brothers listened to him.

Midianites who were merchants passed by, and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. They brought Joseph into Egypt.

The Midianites sold him into Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, the captain of the guard.

Joseph was brought down to Egypt. Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the hand of the Ishmaelites that had brought him down there.

Joseph’s master took him, and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were bound, and he was there in custody.

The keeper of the prison committed to Joseph’s hand all the prisoners who were in the prison. Whatever they did there, he was responsible for it.

He put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, into the prison, the place where Joseph was bound.

The captain of the guard assigned them to Joseph, and he took care of them. They stayed in prison many days.

But remember me when it will be well with you, and please show kindness to me, and make mention of me to Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house.

For indeed, I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also I have done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon.”

Pharaoh was angry with his servants, and put me in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, with the chief baker.

The men were afraid, because they were brought to Joseph’s house; and they said, “Because of the money that was returned in our sacks the first time, we’re brought in; that he may seek occasion against us, attack us, and seize us as slaves, along with our donkeys.”

With whomever of your servants it is found, let him die, and we also will be my lord’s slaves.”

He said, “Now also let it be according to your words: he with whom it is found will be my slave; and you will be blameless.”

Judah said, “What will we tell my lord? What will we speak? Or how will we clear ourselves? God has found out the iniquity of your servants. Behold, we are my lord’s slaves, both we, and he also in whose hand the cup is found.”

He said, “Far be it from me that I should do so. The man in whose hand the cup is found, he will be my slave; but as for you, go up in peace to your father.”

Now therefore, please let your servant stay instead of the boy, my lord’s slave; and let the boy go up with his brothers.

Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” They came near. “He said, I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt.

When that year was ended, they came to him the second year, and said to him, “We will not hide from my lord how our money is all spent, and the herds of livestock are my lord’s. There is nothing left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands.

Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants to Pharaoh. Give us seed, that we may live, and not die, and that the land won’t be desolate.”

So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for every man of the Egyptians sold his field, because the famine was severe on them, and the land became Pharaoh’s.

As for the people, he moved them to the cities from one end of the border of Egypt even to the other end of it.

Then Joseph said to the people, “Behold, I have bought you and your land today for Pharaoh. Behold, here is seed for you, and you shall sow the land.

“Issachar is a strong donkey, lying down between the saddlebags.

He saw a resting place, that it was good, the land, that it was pleasant. He bows his shoulder to the burden, and becomes a servant doing forced labor.

Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who didn’t know Joseph.

Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. They built storage cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamses.

The Egyptians ruthlessly made the children of Israel serve,

and they made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick, and in all kinds of service in the field, all their service, in which they ruthlessly made them serve.

The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah,

and he said, “When you perform the duty of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birth stool; if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.”

Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “You shall cast every son who is born into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.”

In those days, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his brothers, and looked at their burdens. He saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his brothers.

In the course of those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up to God because of the bondage.

God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

God saw the children of Israel, and God was concerned about them.

Yahweh said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.

I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey; to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

Now, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me. Moreover I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.

Come now therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and tell them, ‘Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt;

and I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, to a land flowing with milk and honey.”’

I know that the king of Egypt won’t give you permission to go, no, not by a mighty hand.

I will reach out my hand and strike Egypt with all my wonders which I will do among them, and after that he will let you go.

But every woman shall ask of her neighbor, and of her who visits her house, jewels of silver, jewels of gold, and clothing; and you shall put them on your sons, and on your daughters. You shall plunder the Egyptians.”

and I have said to you, “Let my son go, that he may serve me”; and you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will kill your son, your firstborn.’”

Afterward Moses and Aaron came, and said to Pharaoh, “This is what Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’”

Pharaoh said, “Who is Yahweh, that I should listen to his voice to let Israel go? I don’t know Yahweh, and moreover I will not let Israel go.”

The king of Egypt said to them, “Why do you, Moses and Aaron, take the people from their work? Get back to your burdens!”

Pharaoh said, “Behold, the people of the land are now many, and you make them rest from their burdens.”

The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people, and their officers, saying,

“You shall no longer give the people straw to make brick, as before. Let them go and gather straw for themselves.

The number of the bricks, which they made before, you require from them. You shall not diminish anything of it, for they are idle; therefore they cry, saying, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’

Let heavier work be laid on the men, that they may labor in it; and don’t let them pay any attention to lying words.”

The taskmasters of the people went out, and their officers, and they spoke to the people, saying, “This is what Pharaoh says: ‘I will not give you straw.

Go yourselves, get straw where you can find it, for nothing of your work shall be diminished.’”

So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw.

The taskmasters were urgent saying, “Fulfill your work quota daily, as when there was straw!”

The officers of the children of Israel, whom Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and demanded, “Why haven’t you fulfilled your quota both yesterday and today, in making brick as before?”

Then the officers of the children of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh, saying, “Why do you deal this way with your servants?

No straw is given to your servants, and they tell us, ‘Make brick!’ and behold, your servants are beaten; but the fault is in your own people.”

But he said, “You are idle! You are idle! Therefore you say, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to Yahweh.’

Go therefore now, and work, for no straw shall be given to you, yet you shall deliver the same number of bricks!”

The officers of the children of Israel saw that they were in trouble, when it was said, “You shall not diminish anything from your daily quota of bricks!”

They met Moses and Aaron, who stood in the way, as they came out from Pharaoh:

Yahweh said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh, for by a strong hand he shall let them go, and by a strong hand he shall drive them out of his land.”

Moreover I have heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered my covenant.

Therefore tell the children of Israel, ‘I am Yahweh, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgments:

and I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God; and you shall know that I am Yahweh your God, who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

Moses spoke so to the children of Israel, but they didn’t listen to Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage.

“Go in, speak to Pharaoh king of Egypt, that he let the children of Israel go out of his land.”

Yahweh spoke to Moses and to Aaron, and gave them a command to the children of Israel, and to Pharaoh king of Egypt, to bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.