Exodus 21

The AIT Bible

Laws for Hebrew Servants

1And these are the ordinances that you shall set before them:

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

3If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he is the husband of a wife, then his wife shall go out with him.

4If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall belong to her master, and he shall go out by himself.

5But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’

6then his master shall bring him near to God, and shall bring him to the door or to the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him forever.

7And when a man sells his daughter as a female slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves go out.

8If she is displeasing in the eyes of her master who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed; he shall have no authority to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt treacherously with her.

9And if he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her according to the right of daughters.

10If he takes another for himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her conjugal rights.

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

Laws on Violence and Injury

12Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death.

13But if he did not lie in wait, and God let it happen to his hand, then I will appoint for you a place to which he may flee.

14But when a man acts presumptuously against his neighbor to kill him by cunning, you shall take him from my altar to die.

15And whoever strikes his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.

16And whoever kidnaps a man, whether he has sold him or he is found in his hand, shall surely be put to death.

17And whoever curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.

18And when men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist, and he does not die but takes to his bed,

19if he rises and walks about outside on his staff, then the one who struck him shall be acquitted; only he shall pay for his lost time and shall have him thoroughly healed.

20And when a man strikes his male slave or his female slave with a rod, and he dies under his hand, he shall surely be avenged.

21But if he survives a day or two, he shall not be avenged, for he is his silver.

22And when men fight and strike a pregnant woman so that her children come out, but there is no further harm, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband imposes on him, and he shall pay by the judges’ assessment.

23But if there is further harm, then you shall give life for life,

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

25burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

26And when a man strikes the eye of his male slave or the eye of his female slave and destroys it, he shall let him go free for the sake of his eye.

27And if he knocks out the tooth of his male slave or the tooth of his female slave, he shall let him go free for the sake of his tooth.

28And when an ox gores a man or a woman so that he dies, the ox shall surely be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be innocent.

29But if the ox was prone to goring in the past, and its owner had been warned yet did not keep it in, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.

30If a ransom is imposed on him, then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is imposed on him.

31Whether it gores a son or gores a daughter, it shall be done to him according to this ruling.

32If the ox gores a male slave or a female slave, he shall give thirty shekels of silver to their master, and the ox shall be stoned.

33And if a man opens a pit, or if a man digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it,

34the owner of the pit shall make restitution; he shall repay silver to its owner, and the dead animal shall be his.

35And if a man’s ox strikes his neighbor’s ox and it dies, then they shall sell the live ox and divide its price, and they shall also divide the dead one.

36Or if it was known that the ox was a goring ox from yesterday and the day before, and its owner did not keep it in, he shall surely make restitution, ox for ox, and the dead one shall be his.

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