21:1 Now these are the ordinances which thou shalt set before them.

21:2 If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.

21:3 If he come in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he be married, then his wife shall go out with him.

21:4 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.

21:5 But 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 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.

21:7 And if a man sell his daughter to be a maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men-servants do.

21:8 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.

21:9 And if he espouse her unto 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 things unto her, then shall she go out for nothing, without money.

21:12 He that smiteth a man, so that he dieth, shall surely be put to death.

21:13 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.

21:14 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.

21:15 And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death.

21:16 And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.

21:17 And he that curseth his father or his mother, shall surely be put to death.

21:18 And if men contend, and one smite the other with a stone, or with his fist, and he die not, but keep his bed;

21:19 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.

21:20 And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall surely be punished.

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

21:22 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.

21:23 But if any harm follow, then thou shalt 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 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.

21:27 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.

21:28 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.

21:29 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.

21:30 If there be laid on him a ransom, then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatsoever is laid upon him.

21:31 Whether it have gored a son, or have gored a daughter, according to this judgment shall it be done unto him.

21:32 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.

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; he shall give money unto the owner thereof, and the dead [beast] shall be his.

21:35 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.

21:36 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.