Chapter 21
1 " Now these are the ordinances which you shall set before them :
2 " If you buy a Hebrew servant , he shall serve six years , and in the seventh he shall go out free without paying anything.
3 If he comes in by himself , he shall go out by himself . If he is married , then his wife shall go out with him .
4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters , the wife and her children shall be her master ’s, and he shall go out by himself .
5 But if the servant shall plainly say, ‘ I love my master, my wife, and my children . I will not go out free ;’
6 then his master shall bring him to God, and shall bring him to the door or to the doorpost , and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl , and he shall serve him forever .
7 " If a man sells his daughter to be a female servant , she shall not go out as the male servants do .
8 If she doesn’t please her master , who has married her to himself , then he shall let her be redeemed . He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people , since he has dealt deceitfully with her .
9 If he marries her to his son , he shall deal with her as a daughter .
10 If he takes another wife to himself , he shall not diminish her food , her clothing , and her marital rights .
11 If he doesn’t do these three things for her , she may go free without paying any money .
12 "One who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death ,
13 but not if it is unintentional, but God allows it to happen; then I will appoint you a place where he shall flee .
14 If a man schemes and comes presumptuously on his neighbour to kill him , you shall take him from my altar , that he may die .
15 "Anyone who attacks his father or his mother shall be surely put to death .
16 "Anyone who kidnaps someone and sells him , or if he is found in his hand , he shall surely be put to death .
17 "Anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death .
18 " If men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone, or with his fist, and he doesn’t die , but is confined to bed ;
19 if he rises again and walks around with his staff , then he who struck him shall be cleared; only he shall pay for the loss of his time , and shall provide for his healing until he is thoroughly healed .
20 " If a man strikes his servant or his maid with a rod , and he dies under his hand , the man shall surely be punished .
21 Notwithstanding, if his servant gets up after a day or two , he shall not be punished , for the servant is his property .
22 " If men fight and hurt a pregnant woman so that she gives birth prematurely , and yet no harm follows, he shall be surely fined as much as the woman ’s husband demands and the judges allow .
23 But if any harm follows, then you must take life for life ,
24 eye for eye , tooth for tooth , hand for hand , foot for foot ,
25 burning for burning , wound for wound , and bruise for bruise .
26 " If a man strikes his servant ’s eye , or his maid’s eye , and destroys it , he shall let him go free for his eye ’s sake.
27 If he strikes out his male servant ’s tooth , or his female servant ’s tooth , he shall let the servant go free for his tooth ’s sake.
28 " If a bull gores a man or a woman to death , the bull shall surely be stoned , and its meat shall not be eaten; but the owner of the bull shall not be held responsible.
29 But if the bull had a habit of goring in the past , and this has been testified to its owner , and he has not kept it in , but it has killed a man or a woman, the bull shall be stoned , and its owner shall also be put to death .
30 If a ransom is imposed on him , then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is imposed .
31 Whether it has gored a son or has gored a daughter , according to this judgement it shall be done to him .
32 If the bull gores a male servant or a female servant , thirty shekels of silver shall be given to their master , and the ox shall be stoned .
33 " If a man opens a pit, or if a man digs a pit and doesn’t cover it , and a bull or a donkey falls into it ,
34 the owner of the pit shall make it good . He shall give money to its owner , and the dead animal shall be his .
35 " If one man ’s bull injures another ’s, so that it dies , then they shall sell the live bull , and divide its price ; and they shall also divide the dead animal .
36 Or if it is known that the bull was in the habit of goring in the past , and its owner has not kept it in , he shall surely pay bull for bull , and the dead animal shall be his own .