Exodus 21

1These are the rules that you shall set before them:

2When you acquire a male Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years; in the seventh year he shall go free, without payment.

3If he came single, he shall leave single; if he had a wife, his wife shall leave with him.

4If his master gave him a wife, and she has borne him children, the wife and her children shall belong to the master, and he shall leave alone.

5But if the slave declares, “I love my master, and my wife and children: I do not wish to go free,”

6his master shall take him before God. He shall be brought to the door or the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall then remain his master’s slave for life.

7When someone sells their daughter as a slave, she shall not go free as other slaves do.

8If she proves to be displeasing to her master, who designated her for himself, he must let her be redeemed; he shall not have the right to sell her to outsiders, since he broke faith with her.

9And if the master designated her for a son, he shall deal with her as is the practice with free maidens.

10If he takes another to wife, he must not withhold from this one her food, her clothing, or her conjugal rights.

11If he fails her in these three ways, she shall go free, without payment.

12One who fatally strikes another shall be put to death.

13If it was not by design—it came about by an act of God—I will assign you a place to which that person can flee.

14When one person schemes against another and kills through treachery, you shall take that person from My very altar to be put to death.

15One who strikes their father or mother shall be put to death.

16One who kidnaps another—whether having sold or still holding them—shall be put to death.

17One who insults their father or mother shall be put to death.

18When [two] parties quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or fist, and [the victim] does not die but has to take to bed:

19if the latter then gets up and walks outdoors upon a staff, the assailant shall go unpunished—except for paying for the idleness and the cure.

20When someone strikes their slave, male or female, with a rod, who dies there and then, this must be avenged.

21But if [the victim] survives a day or two, this is not to be avenged, since the one is the other’s property.

22When [two or more] parties fight, and one of them pushes a pregnant woman and a miscarriage results, but no other damage ensues, [the one responsible] shall be fined according as the woman’s husband may exact, the payment to be based on reckoning.

23But if other damage ensues, the penalty shall be life for life,

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

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

26When someone strikes the eye of their slave, male or female, and destroys it, the slave shall go free on account of the eye.

27If [the owner] knocks out the tooth of their slave, male or female, the slave shall go free on account of the tooth.

28When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox is not to be punished.

29If, however, that ox has been in the habit of goring, and its owner, though warned, has failed to guard it, and it kills a man or a woman—the ox shall be stoned and its owner, too, shall be put to death.

30If ransom is imposed to redeem [the owner’s] life, whatever is imposed must be paid.

31So, too, if it gores a minor, male or female: it shall be dealt with according to the same rule.

32But if the ox gores a slave, male or female, [its owner] shall pay thirty shekels of silver to the master, and the ox shall be stoned.

33When someone opens a pit, or digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it,

34the one responsible for the pit must make restitution—paying the price to the owner, but keeping the dead animal.

35When someone’s ox injures a neighbor’s ox and it dies, they shall sell the live ox and divide its price; they shall also divide the dead animal.

36If, however, it is known that the ox was in the habit of goring, and its owner has failed to guard it, [that party] must restore ox for ox, but shall keep the dead animal.

37When someone steals an ox or a sheep, and slaughters it or sells it, five oxen shall be paid for the ox, and four sheep for the sheep.—