Exodus 21 (ASV) - Holy Bible

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

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

³If he come in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he be married, then his wife shall go out with him.

⁴If 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.

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

⁶then 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.

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

⁸If 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.

⁹And if he espouse her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters.

¹⁰If he take him another `wife'; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish.

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

¹²He that smiteth a man, so that he dieth, shall surely be put to death.

¹³And 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.

¹⁴And if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbor, to slay him with guile; thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die.

¹⁵And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death.

¹⁶And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.

¹⁷And he that curseth his father or his mother, shall surely be put to death.

¹⁸And if men contend, and one smite the other with a stone, or with his fist, and he die not, but keep his bed;

¹⁹if 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.

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

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

²²And 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.

²³But if any harm follow, then thou shalt give life for life,

²⁴eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,

²⁵burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

²⁶And 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.

²⁷And 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.

²⁸And 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.

²⁹But 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.

³⁰If there be laid on him a ransom, then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatsoever is laid upon him.

³¹Whether it have gored a son, or have gored a daughter, according to this judgment shall it be done unto him.

³²If 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.

³³And 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,

³⁴the owner of the pit shall make it good; he shall give money unto the owner thereof, and the dead `beast' shall be his.

³⁵And 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.

³⁶Or 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.