Êxodo 21

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

² If you buy a Hebrew slave, six years he will serve: and in the seventh he will go out free for nothing.

³ If he comes in by himself, he will go out by himself: if he is married, then his wife will go out with him.

⁴ If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters; the wife and her children will be her master's, and he will go out by himself.

⁵ But if the slave will plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my sons; I will not go out free:

⁶ then his master will bring him to the gods, and will bring him to the door, or to the door-post; and his master will bore his ear through with an awl; and he will serve him forever.

⁷ And if a man sells his daughter to be a slave, she will not go out as the male slaves do.

⁸ If she doesn't please her master, who has espoused her to himself, then he will let her be redeemed: to sell her to a foreign people he will have no power, seeing he has betrayed her.

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

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

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

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

¹³ And if a man lies not in wait, but God delivers [him] into his hand; then I will appoint you a place where he will flee.

¹⁴ And if a man comes presumptuously on his fellow man, to slay him with guile; you will take him from my altar, that he may die.

¹⁵ And he who strikes his father, or his mother, will be surely put to death.

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

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

¹⁸ And if men contend, and a man strikes his fellow man with a stone, or with his fist, and he doesn't die, but keeps his bed;

¹⁹ if he rises again, and walks abroad on his staff, then he who struck him will be innocent: he will only pay for the loss of his time, and will cause him to be thoroughly healed.

²⁰ And if a man strikes his male slave, or his female slave, with a rod, and he dies under his hand; he will surely be punished.

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

²² And if men strive together, and hurt a pregnant woman so that her children are born prematurely and no harm follows; he will be surely fined, according to as the woman's husband will lay on him; and he will pay as the judges determine.

²³ But if any harm follows, then you will 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 male slave, or the eye of his female slave, and destroys it; he will let him go free for his eye's sake.

²⁷ And if he strikes out his male slave's tooth, or his female slave's tooth, he will let him go free for his tooth's sake.

²⁸ And if an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox will be surely stoned, and its flesh will not be eaten; but the owner of the ox will be innocent.

²⁹ But if the ox was in the habit 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 will be stoned, and its owner also will be put to death.

³⁰ If there be laid on him a ransom, then he will 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 will be done to him.

³² If the ox gores a male slave or a female slave, there will be given to their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox will be stoned.

³³ And if a man will open a pit, or if a man will dig a pit and not cover it, and an ox or a donkey fall in it,

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

³⁵ And if a man's ox hurts his fellow man's ox, so that it dies, then they will sell the live ox, and divide the price of it: and the dead they will also divide.

³⁶ Or if it is known that the ox was in the habit to gore in time past, and its owner has not kept it in, he will surely pay ox for ox, and the dead [beast] will be his own.