Chapter 21
The Lord reveals His laws pertaining to servants, marriage, the death penalty for various offenses, the giving of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and the damage done by oxen.
1 Now these are the
2 If thou buy an Hebrew
3 If he came in
4 If 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.
5 And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free:
6 Then his master shall bring him
7 ¶And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do.
8 If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her.
9 And if he have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters.
10 If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her
11 And if he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out free without money.
12 ¶He that
13 And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand; then I will appoint thee a
14 But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbour, to
15 ¶And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to
16 ¶And he that
17 ¶And he that
18 ¶And if men strive together, and one smite another with a stone, or with his fist, and he die not, but
19 If 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
20 ¶And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be
21 Notwithstanding, if he
22 ¶If men strive, and hurt a woman with
23 And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,
24
25 Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
26 ¶And 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.
27 And if he smite out his manservant’s tooth, or his maidservant’s tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth’s sake.
28 ¶If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they
29 But if the ox were
30 If there be laid on him a sum of money, then he shall give for the ransom of his life whatsoever is laid upon him.
31 Whether he have gored a son, or have gored a daughter, according to this judgment shall it be done unto him.
32 If the ox shall push a manservant or a maidservant; he shall give unto their master
33 ¶And 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;
34 The owner of the pit shall make it good, and give money unto the owner of them; and the dead beast shall be his.
35 ¶And 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.
36 Or if it be known that the ox hath used to push in time past, and his owner hath not kept him in; he shall surely pay ox for ox; and the dead shall be his own.

