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CHAPTER 21
1 These be the dooms, which thou shalt set forth to them.
2 If thou buyest an Hebrew servant, he shall serve thee six years; in the seventh year he shall go out free, without price;
3 with what manner clothes he entered, with such clothes go he out; if he entered having a wife, also the wife shall go out together with him.
4 But if the lord of a servant gave a wife to him, and she childed sons and daughters, the woman and her children shall be her lord’s; soothly the servant shall go out with his own clothes.
5 And if the servant saith, I love my lord, and my wife, and children, I will not go out free;
6 his lord shall bring him to [the] gods, that is, judges; and he shall be set to the door, and to the doorposts; and his lord shall pierce his ear with an awl, and he shall be servant to him till into the world.
7 If any man selleth his daughter into a servantess, she shall not go out as handmaids were wont to go out;
8 if she displeaseth in the eyes of her lord, to whom she was betaken, he shall deliver her; soothly he shall not have power to sell her to an alien people, if he forsaketh her.
9 Forsooth if he weddeth her to his son, he shall do to her by the custom of daughters;
10 and if he take with this handmaid another woman, or wife, to his son, he shall purvey to the first damsel, or handmaid, weddings, and clothes, and he shall not deny her the price of her chastity, that is, the hour of yielding debt.
11 If he doeth not to her these three, she shall go out freely without money.
12 He that smiteth a man, and will slay him, die he by death;
13 forsooth if a man setteth not ambush, but God betook him into his hands, I shall ordain a place to thee, whither he oweth to flee.
14 If any man slayeth his neighbour by before-casting, and by ambush, draw thou him away from mine altar, that he die.
15 He that smiteth his father, or his mother, die he by death.
16 He that curseth his father, or mother, die he by death.
17 He that stealeth a man, and selleth him, if he is convicted of the guilt, die he by death.
18 If men chide, and the tother smite his neighbour with a stone, or with the fist, and he is not dead, but lieth in the bed,
19 if he riseth, and goeth forth on his staff, he that smote shall be innocent; so nevertheless that he restore to him for his travails, and his costs in leeches.
20 He that smiteth his servant, or handmaid, with a rod, and they be dead in his hands, he shall be guilty of the crime, or hideous trespass.
21 Soothly if the servant liveth over this beating one day, or twain [or two], the smiter shall not be subject to the pain of death, for the servant is his master’s chattel.
22 If men chide, and a man smiteth a woman with child, and soothly he maketh the child dead-born, but the woman liveth over that smiting, he shall be subject to the harm, as much as the woman’s husband asketh, and as the judges deem.
23 Soothly if the death of her pursueth [or follow], he shall yield life for life,
24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
25 burning for burning, wound for wound, sore for sore.
26 If a man smiteth the eye of his servant, either of his handmaid, and maketh them one-eyed, he shall deliver them free for the eye which he put out.
27 Also if he smite out a tooth of his servant, or [his] handmaid, in like manner he shall deliver them free.
28 If an ox smiteth with his horn either man, or woman, and they be dead, the ox shall be thrown down with stones, and his flesh shall not be eaten, and the lord of the ox shall be guiltless.
29 That if the ox was an horn-putter from yesterday and the third day ago, and men warned his lord, neither the lord enclosed him, and he slayeth a man, or a woman, both the ox shall be thrown adown with stones, and they shall slay his lord;
30 that if the price be put to the lord, he shall give for his life whatever he is asked.
31 And if he smiteth with horn a man’s son, and his daughter, his lord shall be subject to the same sentence.
32 If the ox assaileth a manservant, and an handmaid, the lord of the ox shall give thirty shekels of silver to the lord of that servant; forsooth the ox shall be oppressed with stones.
33 If any man openeth a cistern, or a pit, and diggeth it, and covereth it not, and an ox either an ass falleth into it,
34 the lord of the cistern shall yield the price of the beasts; forsooth that that is dead shall be his.
35 If one man’s ox woundeth the ox of another man, and he is dead, they shall sell the quick ox, and they shall part [or divide] the price; soothly they shall part betwixt them the carcass of the dead ox.
36 Forsooth if the lord knew, that his ox was a horn-putter from yesterday and the third day ago, and kept not him in, he shall yield ox for ox, and he shall take the whole dead carcass.

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© 2001,2010,2011,2012,2013,2015 Terry Noble