Êxodo 21

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

² If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.

³ If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he be 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 sons 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 sons, 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 door-post, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him forever.

⁷ And if a man sells his daughter to be a maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men-servants do.

⁸ If she does not please her master, who has espoused her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no power to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt deceitfully with her.

⁹ And if he espouses her to his son, he shall deal with her according to the manner of daughters.

¹⁰ If he takes him another [wife], her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, he shall not diminish.

¹¹ And if he does not do these three things to her, then she shall go out for nothing, without money.

¹² He who smites a man, so that he dies, shall surely be put to death.

¹³ And if a man does not lay in wait, but God delivers [him] into his hand, then I will appoint for thee a place where he shall flee.

¹⁴ And if a man comes presumptuously upon his neighbor, to kill him with guile, thou shall take him from my altar, that he may die.

¹⁵ And he who smites his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death.

¹⁶ And he who steals a man, and sells him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.

¹⁷ And he who curses his father or his mother, shall surely be put to death.

¹⁸ And if men contend, and one smites the other with a stone, or with his fist, and he does not die, but keeps his bed,

¹⁹ if he rises again, and walks abroad upon his staff, then he who smote him shall be acquitted. Only he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall cause him to be thoroughly healed.

²⁰ And if a man smites his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he dies under his hand, he shall surely be punished.

²¹ Notwithstanding, if he continues a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money.

²² And if men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart, and yet no harm follow, he shall be surely fined, according as the woman's husband shall lay upon him, and he shall pay as the judges determine.

²³ But if any harm follows, then thou 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 smites the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, and destroys it, he shall let him go free for his eye's sake.

²⁷ And if he knocks out his man-servant's tooth, or his maid-servant's tooth, he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake.

²⁸ And 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 be acquitted.

²⁹ But if the ox was accustomed to gore in time past, and it has been testified to its owner, and he has not kept it in, but it has killed a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner shall also 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 upon 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 man-servant or a maid-servant, there shall be given to 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 falls in it,

³⁴ the owner of the pit shall make it good; he shall give money to the owner of it, and the dead [beast] shall be his.

³⁵ And if one man's ox hurts another's, so that it dies, then they shall sell the live ox, and divide the price of it, and the dead they shall also 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 [beast] shall be his own.