Exodus 21:1-25 ▼

1 And these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them.

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

3 If he came in alone, he shall go out alone: if he had a wife, then his wife shall go out with him.

4 If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out alone.

5 But if the bondman shall say distinctly, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go free;

6 then his master shall bring him before the judges, and shall bring him to the door, or to the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall be his bondman for ever.

7 And if a man shall sell his daughter as a handmaid, she shall not go out as the bondmen go out.

8 If she is unacceptable in the eyes of her master, who had taken her for himself, then shall he let her be ransomed: to sell her unto a foreign people he hath no power, after having dealt unfaithfully with her.

9 And if he have appointed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the law of daughters.

10 If he take himself another, her food, her clothing, and her conjugal rights he shall not diminish.

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

12 He that striketh a man, so that he die, shall certainly be put to death.

13 But if he have not lain in wait, and God have delivered [him] into his hand, I will appoint thee a place to which he shall flee.

14 But if a man act wantonly toward his neighbour, and slay him with guile, thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die.

15 And he that striketh his father, or his mother, shall certainly be put to death.

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

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

18 And if men dispute, and one strike the other with a stone, or with the fist, and he die not, but take to [his] bed,

19 -- if he rise, and walk abroad upon his staff, then shall he that struck [him] be guiltless; only he shall pay [for] the loss of his time, and shall cause [him] to be thoroughly healed.

20 And if a man strike his bondman or his handmaid with a staff, and he die under his hand, he shall certainly be avenged.

21 Only, if he continue [to live] a day or two days, he shall not be avenged; for he is his money.

22 And if men strive together, and strike a woman with child, so that she be delivered, and no mischief happen, he shall in any case be fined, according as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and shall give it as the judges estimate.

23 But if mischief happen, then thou shalt give life for life,

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

25 branding for branding, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.