Exodus 21

1These are the judgments you shall place before them.

2If you acquire a Hebrew servant, he must serve six years, and in the seventh he goes free without payment.

3If he enters alone, he leaves alone; if he has a wife, she leaves with him.

4If his master provides him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children belong to her master, and he goes out alone.

5But if the servant declares, "I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not be set free."

6Then his master shall bring him before God, to the door or doorpost, and shall pierce his ear with an awl; he shall serve him forever.

7If a man sells his daughter as a servant girl, she shall not go free like the male servants.

8If she does not please her master, who appointed her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no power to sell her to a foreign people, because he has dealt deceitfully with her.

9If he designates her for his son, he must treat her as a daughter.

10If he marries another wife, he shall not deprive her of food, clothing, or conjugal rights.

11If he does not provide these three for her, she shall go free without payment.

12Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death.

13But if he did not intend it, but God brought it about, then I will designate a place for you where he may flee.

14But if a man willfully attacks his neighbor to kill him, you shall take him from my altar so that he dies.

15Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death.

16Whoever kidnaps a person and sells him, or if that person is found in his possession, must be put to death.

17Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death.

18If men fight and one hits the other with a stone or his fist, and he does not die but takes to bed,

19If he gets up and walks about using his staff, then the one who struck him goes free, but he must pay for the time lost and ensure his complete recovery.

20If a man strikes his male servant or his female servant with a rod and he dies under his hand, he shall surely be avenged.

21However, if he survives a day or two, he faces no punishment, because that one is his property.

22If men fight and strike a pregnant woman so her children come out, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be fined, according as her husband demands and the judges determine.

23But if harm results, you shall give life for life.

24an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot.

25burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

26If a man strikes his servant's eye or his maidservant's eye and ruins it, he shall release him free on account of that eye.

27If he knocks out his male servant's tooth or his female servant's tooth, he must set him free because of his tooth.

28If an ox gores a man or a woman fatally, the ox must be stoned to death, and its meat must not be eaten, but the owner bears no guilt.

29But if the bull had gored before and its owner had been warned but did not restrain it, and it killed a man or a woman, then the bull shall be stoned, and its owner shall also be put to death.

30If a ransom is set on him, he shall pay whatever amount is demanded to redeem his life.

31Whether it gores a son or gores a daughter, the same judgment applies to him.

32If the ox gores a male servant or a female servant, their master shall receive thirty shekels of silver, and the ox must be stoned.

33If someone uncovers a pit or digs one and leaves it open, and an ox or donkey falls into it,

34The pit's owner must make restitution by paying the animal's owner its value, and the dead animal will belong to him.

35If a man's ox gores his neighbor's ox and it dies, they shall sell the live ox and divide its value, and they shall also divide the dead ox.

36Or if the bull was known to have gored before, yet its owner did not restrain it, he must give bull for bull, and the dead one shall belong to him.