Exodus 21

¹ “Now these are the ordinances which you shall set before them.

² If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free without paying anything. ³ If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he is married, then his wife shall go out with him. ⁴ If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself. ⁵ But 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 to God, and shall bring him to the door or to the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him forever.

⁷ “If a man sells his daughter to be a female servant, she shall not go out as the male servants do. ⁸ If she doesn’t please her master, who has appointed her 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 deceitfully with her. ⁹ If he appoints her to his son, he shall deal with her according to the custom of daughters. ¹⁰ If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. ¹¹ If he doesn’t do these three things for her, she may go free without paying any money.

¹² “One who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death; ¹³ but not if it is unintentional, but God allows it to happen. Then I will appoint you a place where he shall flee. ¹⁴ If a man schemes and comes presumptuously on his neighbor to kill him, you shall take him from my altar, that he may die.

¹⁵ “Anyone who attacks his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.

¹⁶ “Anyone who kidnaps someone and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, shall surely be put to death.

¹⁷ “Anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.

¹⁸ “If men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone, or with his fist, and he doesn’t die, but keeps his bed, ¹⁹ if he rises again and walks around with his staff, then he who struck him shall be acquitted, except that he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall cause him to be thoroughly healed.

²⁰ “If a man strikes his servant or his handmaid with a rod, and he dies under his hand, the striker shall surely be punished. ²¹ Notwithstanding, if he gets up after a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his property.

²² “If men fight and hurt a pregnant woman so that she gives birth prematurely, and yet no harm follows, he shall be surely fined, as much as the woman’s husband demands and the judges allow. ²³ But if any harm follows, then you must take life for life, ²⁴ eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, ²⁵ burn for burn, wound for wound, and bruise for bruise.

²⁶ “If a man strikes his servant’s eye, or his handmaid’s eye, and destroys it, he shall let him go free for his eye’s sake. ²⁷ If he strikes out his servant’s tooth, or his handmaid’s tooth, he shall let him go free for his tooth’s sake.

²⁸ “If an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall surely be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall not be held responsible. ²⁹ But if the ox was known to gore in the past, and its owner has been warned, but he has not kept it in, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death. ³⁰ If a ransom is laid on him, then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is laid on him. ³¹ Whether it has gored a son or has gored a daughter, according to this judgment it shall be done to him. ³² If the ox gores a servant or a handmaid, he shall give thirty shekels of silver to their master, and the ox shall be stoned.

³³ “If a man opens a pit, or if a man digs a pit and doesn’t cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it, ³⁴ the owner of the pit shall make it good. He shall give money to its owner, and the dead animal shall be his.

³⁵ “If one man’s ox hurts another’s, so that it dies, then they shall sell the live ox, and divide its price; and they shall also divide the dead animal. ³⁶ Or if it is known that the ox was in the habit of goring in the past, and its owner has not kept it in, he shall surely pay ox for ox, and the dead animal shall be his own.