This edition follows the Hebrew versification; the traditional number is given in brackets.
Laws about servants
1These are the laws you are to set before them. 2If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve six years, and in the seventh year he shall go free, without payment. 3If he came in alone, he is to go out alone; if he had a wife when he came, his wife is to go out with him. 4If his master gave him a wife and she bore him sons or daughters, the wife and her children belong to her master, and he is to go out alone. 5But if the servant plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children — I do not want to go free,’ 6then his master shall bring him to God, and bring him to the door or the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl, and he will serve him for life. 7If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do. 8If she is displeasing to her master, who chose her for himself, he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, since he has broken faith with her. 9If he selects her for his son, he must deal with her as with a daughter. 10If he takes another wife, he must not reduce the food, clothing, and marital rights of the first. 11If he does not provide her these three things, she may go free, without any payment.
Laws about injury and death
12Whoever strikes a man and kills him shall surely be put to death. 13But if he did not do it intentionally, but God let it happen, I will appoint you a place he may flee to. 14But if someone schemes against another and kills him deliberately, take him even from my altar and put him to death. 15Whoever strikes his father or mother shall surely be put to death. 16Whoever kidnaps someone and sells him, or is caught still holding him, shall surely be put to death. 17Whoever curses his father or mother shall surely be put to death. 18If men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist, and the man does not die but is confined to bed — 19if he recovers and can walk outside with a staff, the one who struck him goes unpunished, except that he must pay for the loss of his time and see that he is completely healed. 20If a man strikes his male or female servant with a rod, and the servant dies under his hand, he shall be punished. 21But if the servant survives a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the servant is his property. 22If men are fighting and hit a pregnant woman so that she gives birth prematurely, but no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands, subject to the judges’ approval. 23But if there is serious harm, you are to take life for life, 24eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. 26If a man strikes the eye of his male or female servant and destroys it, he must let the servant go free in compensation for the eye. 27If he knocks out the tooth of his male or female servant, he must let the servant go free in compensation for the tooth.
Laws about oxen and livestock
28If an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox must be stoned, and its meat must not be eaten; but the owner of the ox is not liable. 29But if the ox has had the habit of goring, and its owner has been warned but has not restrained it, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox must be stoned, and its owner too must be put to death. 30If instead a payment is demanded of him, he may redeem his life by paying whatever is demanded. 31Whether it gores a son or a daughter, the same law applies. 32If the ox gores a male or female servant, the owner must pay the master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox must be stoned. 33If a man opens a pit, or digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it, 34the owner of the pit must pay for the loss; he must pay the animal’s owner, and the dead animal will be his. 35If a man’s ox injures a neighbor’s ox and it dies, they must sell the live ox and divide the price, and also divide the dead animal. 36But if it is known that the ox has had the habit of goring, and its owner has not restrained it, he must pay full compensation, ox for ox, and the dead animal will be his. 37[22:1]If a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters it or sells it, he must repay five head of cattle for the ox, and four sheep for the sheep.
