Exodus 21

Revised Geneva Translation

21 “Now, these are the laws 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, for nothing.

³ “If he came by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he is married, then his wife shall go out with him.

⁴ “If his master has given him a wife, and she has borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s. But he shall go out by himself.

⁵ “But, if the servant says this: ‘I love my master, my wife and my children, I will not go out free,’

⁶ “then his master shall bring him to the judges and bring him to the door (or to the post) and his master shall pierce his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever.

⁷ “Likewise, if a man sells his daughter to be a servant, she shall not go out as the menservants do.

⁸ “If she does not please her master, who has betrothed her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no power to sell her to a strange people, seeing he has deceived her.

⁹ “But, if he has betrothed her to his son, he shall deal with her according to the custom of the daughters.

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

¹¹ “And if he does not do these three things for her, then she shall go out free, paying no money.

¹² “He who strikes a man, and he dies, shall die the death.

¹³ “But, if a man did not lie in wait, but God offered him into his hand, then I will appoint a place where he shall flee.

¹⁴ “But, if a man comes presumptuously upon his neighbor, to kill him with craftiness, you shalt take him from My altar, so that he may die.

¹⁵ “Also, he who strikes his father or his mother, shall die the death.

¹⁶ “And, he who steals a man and sells him, or if he is found with him, shall die the death.

¹⁷ “And, he who curses his father or his mother, shall die the death.

¹⁸ “Also, when men strive together and one strikes another with a stone, or with the fist, and he does not die, but is bedridden,

¹⁹ “if he rises again and walks outside with his staff, then he who struck him shall be acquitted. He shall only pay his charges for his idle time and shall pay for his healing.

²⁰ “And if a man strikes his servant (or his maid) with a rod, and he dies under his hand, he shall surely be punished.

²¹ “But, if he endures for a day, or two days, he shall not be punished. For he is his money.

²² “Also, if men strive and hurt a woman with child, so that her child departs from her, but death does not follow, he shall surely be punished according to the woman’s husband’s demands, or he shall pay as the judges determine.

²³ “But, if death does follow, then you shall pay life for life,

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

²⁵ “burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

²⁶ “And if a man strikes his servant in the eye, or his maid in the eye, and has destroyed it, he shall let him go free because of his eye.

²⁷ “Also, if he knocks out his servant’s tooth, or his maid’s tooth, he shall let him go out free because of his tooth.

²⁸ “If an ox gores a man or a woman so that he dies, the ox shall be stoned to death and his flesh shall not be eaten. But the owner of the ox shall be acquitted.

²⁹ If the ox was known to push in times past and it has been told to his master and he has not controlled him. And if afterward, he kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned; and his owner shall die also.

³⁰ “If a sum of money is imposed upon him, then he shall pay the ransom for his life, whatever shall be laid upon him.

³¹ “Whether it has gored a son or gored a daughter, it shall be judged in the same manner.

³² “If the ox gores a servant or a maid, he shall give their master thirty shekels of silver; and the ox shall be stoned.

³³ “And when a man opens a well (or when he digs a pit) and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls therein,

³⁴ “the owner of the pit shall make it good, giving money to the owner thereof. And the dead beast shall become his.

³⁵ “And if a man’s ox hurts his neighbor’s ox, so that he dies, then they shall sell the live ox and divide the money thereof; and they shall also divide the dead ox.

³⁶ “Or if it is known that the ox tended to push in times past, and his master has not controlled him, he shall pay ox for ox; but the dead shall become his own.”