Exodus

Laws About Slavery

These are the laws you are to set before them:

When you buy a Hebrew slave, he will serve you for six years, and in the seventh year, he shall go free, with nothing to pay.

If he came alone, he would leave alone. If he were married, his wife would accompany him.

If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children belong to his master; he will leave them to their own care.

But if the slave says: ‘I love my wife, my master, and my children, I will not go free,’

his master shall bring him to God; he will take him to the door or the doorpost, then his master will pierce his ear with an awl, and he shall serve him for life.

When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she is not to go free as male slaves do.

If she does not please the master who intended her for himself, he shall let another redeem her; he is not to sell her to foreigners because he has broken faith with her.

If he intends her for his son, he will deal with her according to the rights of daughters.

If he takes another for himself, he will not diminish her food, clothing, or marital rights.

If he fails her regarding these three rights, she will go free without any payment.

Criminal Legislation

The man who strikes another and so causes his death shall die.

If he did not want to kill him, but as it were, let it happen, then I will give you a place where he may find refuge.

Instead, if a man willfully attacks another to kill him treacherously, you will take him away even from my altar and put him to death.

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

Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or is found holding him captive shall be put to death.

He who curses his father or mother shall be put to death.

Criminal Casuistry

When men quarrel, and one strikes another with a stone or with his fist so that the man is confined to bed,

but after that, he gets up and walks about with the help of a stick, the man who struck the blow will not be held as a criminal. He will, however, pay the injured man for the loss of time and see that he is completely healed.

When a man strikes his slave, or his servant with a rod, and the man dies at his hands, he shall be punished.

But if the slave survives for a day or two, he will not be penalized since the slave is his property.

If men are fighting and a pregnant woman is hit so that the child is born prematurely, but she is not injured, the one who hurt her will pay the fine demanded by her husband and allowed by the court.

But if there is a serious injury, you are to take life for life,

eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, foot for foot,

burns for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

When a man strikes the eye of his slave, male or female, and the eye is lost, he will let the slave go free in compensation for the eye.

Or if he knocks out a tooth, he will likewise give the slave his freedom.

When an ox kills a man or woman, the ox will be stoned, and its flesh will not be eaten, but the owner of the ox will not be punished.

If the ox has gored someone before and its owner was warned but did not keep it fenced in, and it later kills a man or woman, the ox will be stoned, and the owner will be put to death.

If the owner is allowed to pay a fine to save his life, he must pay whatever is required.

The same law applies if the ox gores a boy or a girl.

If the ox gores a man or woman slave, the owner of the slave shall be paid thirty pieces of silver, and the ox will be stoned.

When a man leaves a pit uncovered or digs a pit and leaves it open, and an ox or a donkey falls into it,

the owner of the pit will compensate the animal’s owner by paying him money, but he may keep the dead animal.

When a man’s ox injures his neighbor’s ox and kills it, they will sell the live ox and divide both the money and the meat of the dead animal.

Or, if it is known that the ox has been in the habit of goring and its owner has not kept it in, he must compensate the neighbor by giving a live ox, but the dead ox will belong to him.

Laws Concerning Property

If a man steals an ox or a sheep and either slaughters or sells it, he must pay five oxen for the ox, four sheep for the sheep.