Depending on the translation of the previous verse, it may be advisable to begin this verse with a strong contrasting conjunction like “rather” or “but.”

A hired servant: this is in contrast with the word “slave” in the previous verse. A hired servant was a person who had considerably more freedom than a slave, since he agreed to do a job and received pay for it. He did not perform tasks that involved humiliation, since these were normally left to slaves. The point of this verse is that the poor Israelite was technically a slave and received no salary, but he was to be treated like the salaried worker.

And as a sojourner: this has been omitted from Good News Translation for some unknown reason, but should definitely be included in the receptor-language translation. The lot of the resident alien living in the house of an Israelite was even better than that of the hired servant. So this represents a further softening in the attitude toward the Israelite slave.

The year of the jubilee: see verse 10.

Quoted with permission from Péter-Contesse, René and Ellington, John. A Handbook on Leviticus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1990. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .