Exodus 21
KJV Easy Read Bible

The Law Concerning Servants

1Now these are the judgments which you shall set before them.   ordinances

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

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

4If 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.

5And 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 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 awl; and he shall serve him for ever.   pierce

7And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do.

8If 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.   foreign

9And if he have betrothed her to 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.   clothes

11And if he do not these three to her, then shall she go out free without money.

The Law Concerning Violence

12He that smites a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death.   strikes

13And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand; then I will appoint you a place where he shall flee.

14But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbor, to slay him with guile; you shall take him from My altar, that he may die.   willfully; deceit

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

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

17And he that curses his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.   MATT 15:4; MARK 7:10

18And if men strive together, and one smite another with a stone, or with his fist, and he die not, but keeps 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.   go unpunished

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

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

22If 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.   she suffers a miscarriage; further injury

23And if any mischief follow, then you shall give life for life,

24Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,   MATT 5:38

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, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye’s sake.

27And if he smite out his manservant’s tooth, or his maidservant’s tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth’s sake.

Animal Control Laws

28If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit.   killed; free of blame

29But if the ox were wont to push with its horn in time past, and it has been testified to its owner, and he has not kept him in, but that he has killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.   accustomed (as a habit)

30If there be laid on him a sum of money, then he shall give for the ransom 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 to it.

32If 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.   MATT 26:15

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, and give money to the owner of them; and the dead beast shall be his.

35And 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.

36Or if it be known that the ox has used to push in time past, and its owner has not kept him in; he shall surely pay ox for ox; and the dead shall be his own.





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