Chapter 21

  Now these are the ordinances which thou shalt set before them.  

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

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  If he come in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he be married, then his wife shall go out with him.  

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  If his master give him a wife and she bear him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself.  

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  But if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free:  

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  then his master shall bring him unto God, and shall 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 for ever.  

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

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  If she please not her master, who hath espoused her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a foreign people he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her.  

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  And if he espouse her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters.  

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

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

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  He that smiteth a man, so that he dieth, shall surely be put to death.  

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  And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver [him] into his hand; then I will appoint thee a place whither he shall flee.  

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  And if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbor, to slay him with guile; thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die.  

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  And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death.  

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  And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.  

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  And he that curseth his father or his mother, shall surely be put to death.  

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  And if men contend, and one smite the other with a stone, or with his fist, and he die not, but keep his bed;  

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  if he rise again, and walk abroad upon his staff, then shall he that smote him be quit: only he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall cause him to be thoroughly healed.  

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  And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall surely be punished.  

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

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  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.  

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  But if any harm follow, then thou shalt give life for life,  

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  eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,  

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  burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.  

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  And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, and destroy it; he shall let him go free for his eye's sake.  

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

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  And if an ox gore a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be surely stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit.  

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  But if the ox was wont to gore in time past, and it hath been testified to its owner, and he hath not kept it in, but it hath killed a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.  

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  If there be laid on him a ransom, then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatsoever is laid upon him.  

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  Whether it have gored a son, or have gored a daughter, according to this judgment shall it be done unto him.  

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  If the ox gore a man-servant or a maid-servant, there shall be given unto their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned.  

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  And if a man shall open a pit, or if a man shall dig a pit and not cover it, and an ox or an ass fall therein,  

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

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  And if one man's ox hurt another's, so that it dieth, then they shall sell the live ox, and divide the price of it: and the dead also they shall divide.  

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  Or if it be known that the ox was wont to gore in time past, and its owner hath not kept it in, he shall surely pay ox for ox, and the dead [beast] shall be his own.  

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