Exodus

Chapter 21

1. Now these are the judgments which you shall set before them.
2. If you buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.
3. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he was married, then his wife shall go out with him.
4. If his master has given him a wife, and she has borne him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself.
5. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free:
6. Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever.
7. And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do.
8. If she please not her master, who has betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he has dealt deceitfully with her.
9. And if he has betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters.
10. If he takes him another wife; her food, her clothing, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish.
11. And if he does not these three unto her, then shall she go out free without money.
12. He that strikes a man, so that he dies, shall be surely put to death.
13. And if a man lie not in wait, but God delivers him into his hand; then I will appoint you a place where he shall flee.
14. But if a man comes presumptuously upon his neighbor, to slay him with guile; you shall take him from my altar, that he may die.
15. And he that strikes his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death.
16. And he that steals a man, and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.
17. And he that curses his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.
18. And if men strive together, and one strikes another with a stone, or with his fist, and he dies not, but keeps his bed:
19. If he rises again, and walks about upon his staff, then shall he that smote him be clear: only he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall cause him to be thoroughly healed.
20. And if a man strikes his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he dies under his hand; he shall be surely punished.
21. But, if he continues a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his property.
22. If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no mischief follows: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
23. And if any mischief follows, then you shall give life for life,
24. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
25. Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
26. And if a man strikes the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye's sake.
27. And if he knocks out his manservant's tooth, or his maidservant's tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake.
28. If an ox gores a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be clear.
29. But if the ox were accustomed to gore with its horn in time past, and it has been testified to its owner, and he has not kept it in, but that it has killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.
30. If there be laid on him a sum of money, then he shall give for the ransom of his life whatsoever is laid upon him.
31. Whether it has gored a son, or has gored a daughter, according to this judgment shall it be done unto him.
32. If the ox shall gore a manservant or a maidservant; he shall give unto their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned.
33. And if a man shall open a pit, or if a man shall dig a pit, and not cover it, and an ox or a donkey fall in it;
34. The owner of the pit shall make it good, and give money unto the owner of them; and the dead beast shall be his.
35. And if one man's ox hurts another's, that it dies; then they shall sell the live ox, and divide the money of it; and the dead ox also they shall divide.
36. Or if it be known that the ox was accustomed to gore in time past, and its owner has not kept it in; he shall surely pay ox for ox; and the dead shall be his own.