Exodus Chapter 21

Setting forth the judgements

21:1 NOW these [are] the judgments which you shall set before them.
21:2 If you buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.
21:3 If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him.
21:4 If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters ; the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself.
21:5 And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children ; I will not go out free
21:6 Then his master shall bring him to the judges ; he shall also bring him to the door, or to the door post ; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul ; and he shall serve him for ever.
21:7 And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do.
21:8 If she please not her master, who has betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed to sell her to a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he has dealt deceitfully with her.
21:9 And if he have betrothed her to his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters.
21:10 If he take him another [wife]; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish.
21:11 And if he do not these three to her, then shall she go out free without money.
21:12 He that smites a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death.
21:13 And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver [him] into his hand ; then I will appoint ya’ll a place whither he shall flee.
21:14 But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbor, to kill him with guile ; you will take him from mine altar, that he may die.
21:15 And he that strikes his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death.

Teachings for cursers of parents

21:16 And he that steals a man, and sells him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.
21:17 And he that curse his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.
21:18 And if men strive together, and one strike another with a stone, or with [his] fist, and he die not, but keeps [his] bed
21:19 If he rise again, and walk abroad upon his staff, then shall he that struck [him] be quit only he shall pay [for] the loss of his time, and shall cause [him] to be thoroughly healed.
21:20 And if a man strike his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand ; he shall be surely punished.
21:21 Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished for he [is] his money.
21:22 If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart [from her], and yet no mischief follow he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges [determine].

Eye for an eye

21:23 And if [any] mischief follow, then you will give life for life,
21:24 Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
21:25 Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
21:26 And if a man strike 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.
21:27 And if he strike out his manservant’s tooth, or his maidservant’s tooth ; he shall let him go free for his tooth’s sake.

Teachings for an ox that gores

21:28 If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten ; but the owner of the ox [shall be] quit.
21:29 But if the ox were wont to push with his horn in time past, and it has been testified to his owner, and he has not kept him in, but that he has killed a man or a woman ; the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death.
21:30 If there be laid on him a sum of money, then he shall give for the ransom of his life what ever is laid upon him.
21:31 Whether he have gored a son, or have gored a daughter, according to this judgment shall it be done to him.
21:32 If the ox shall push a manservant or a maidservant ; he shall give to their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned.
21:33 And if a man shall open a pit, or if a man shall dig a pit, and not cover it, and an ox or an ass fall therein ;
21:34 The owner of the pit shall make [it] good, [and] give money to the owner of them; and the dead [beast] shall be his.
21:35 And if one man’s ox hurt another’s, that he die ; then they shall sell the live ox, and divide the money of it; and the dead [ox] also they shall divide.
21:36 Or if it be known that the ox have used to push in time past, and his owner has not kept him in; he shall surely pay ox for ox ; and the dead shall be his own.