Enslaved

Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.

We and our children are just like our countrymen and their children, yet we are subjecting our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters are already enslaved, but we are powerless to redeem them because our fields and vineyards belong to others.”

The trees of the field will give their fruit, and the land will yield its produce; My flock will be secure in their land. Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I have broken the bars of their yoke and delivered them from the hands that enslaved them.

God told him that his descendants would be foreigners in a strange land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.

So also, when we were children, we were enslaved under the basic principles of the world.

But now that you know God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you are turning back to those weak and worthless principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?

For at one time we too were foolish, disobedient, misled, and enslaved to all sorts of desires and pleasures—living in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.