Exodus 21 NIV 2011/WYC 1382

Published on 15 January 2025 at 19:28

NIV 2011

Hebrew Servants

21 “These are the laws you are to set before them:

²“If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything. ³If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. ⁴If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.

⁵“But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,’ ⁶then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life.

⁷“If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do. ⁸If she does not please the master who has selected her for himself, he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, because he has broken faith with her. ⁹If he selects her for his son, he must grant her the rights of a daughter. ¹⁰If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights. ¹¹If he does not provide her with these three things, she is to go free, without any payment of money.

Personal Injuries

¹²“Anyone who strikes a person with a fatal blow is to be put to death. ¹³However, if it is not done intentionally, but God lets it happen, they are to flee to a place I will designate. ¹⁴But if anyone schemes and kills someone deliberately, that person is to be taken from my altar and put to death.

¹⁵“Anyone who attacks their father or mother is to be put to death.

¹⁶“Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or is still in the kidnapper’s possession.

¹⁷“Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.

¹⁸“If people quarrel and one person hits another with a stone or with their fist and the victim does not die but is confined to bed, ¹⁹the one who struck the blow will not be held liable if the other can get up and walk around outside with a staff; however, the guilty party must pay the injured person for any loss of time and see that the victim is completely healed.

²⁰“Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, ²¹but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.

²²“If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. ²³But if there is serious injury, 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.

²⁶“An owner who hits a male or female slave in the eye and destroys it must let the slave go free to compensate for the eye. ²⁷And an owner who knocks out the tooth of a male or female slave must let the slave go free to compensate for the tooth.

²⁸“If a bull gores a man or woman to death, the bull is to be stoned to death, and its meat must not be eaten. But the owner of the bull will not be held responsible. ²⁹If, however, the bull has had the habit of goring and the owner has been warned but has not kept it penned up and it kills a man or woman, the bull is to be stoned and its owner also is to be put to death. ³⁰However, if payment is demanded, the owner may redeem his life by the payment of whatever is demanded. ³¹This law also applies if the bull gores a son or daughter. ³²If the bull gores a male or female slave, the owner must pay thirty shekels of silver to the master of the slave, and the bull is to be stoned to death.

³³“If anyone uncovers a pit or digs one and fails to cover it and an ox or a donkey falls into it, ³⁴the one who opened the pit must pay the owner for the loss and take the dead animal in exchange.

³⁵“If anyone’s bull injures someone else’s bull and it dies, the two parties are to sell the live one and divide both the money and the dead animal equally. ³⁶However, if it was known that the bull had the habit of goring, yet the owner did not keep it penned up, the owner must pay, animal for animal, and take the dead animal in exchange.

WYC 1382

Hebrew Servants

21 These be the dooms, which thou shalt set forth to them.

²If thou buyest an Hebrew servant, he shall serve thee six years; in the seventh year he shall go out free, without price; ³with what manner cloak he entered, with such cloak go he out; if he entered having a wife, also the wife shall go out together with him. ⁴But 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 cloth.

⁵And if the servant saith, I love my lord, and my wife, and children, I will not go out free; ⁶his lord shall bring him to [the] gods, that is, (to the) judges; and he shall be set to the door, and to the posts; and his lord shall pierce his ear with an awl, and he shall be servant to him till into the world.

⁷If any man selleth his daughter into a servantess, she shall not go out as handmaids were wont to go out; ⁸if she displeaseth in the eyes of her lord, to whom she was betaken, he shall deliver her; soothly he shall not have power, (or the right,) to sell her to an alien people, if he forsaketh her. ⁹Forsooth if he weddeth her to his son, he shall do to her by the custom of daughters. ¹⁰and 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. ¹¹If he doeth not to her these three (things), she shall go out freely without money.

Personal Injuries

¹²He that smiteth a man, and will slay him, die he by death; ¹³forsooth if a man setteth not ambush, but God betook him into his hands, I shall ordain a place to thee, whither he oughteth to flee. ¹⁴If any man slayeth his neighbour by before-casting, and by ambush, draw thou him away from mine altar, that he die.

¹⁵He that smiteth his father, or his mother, die he by death.

¹⁶He that curseth his father, or mother, die he by death.

¹⁷He that stealeth a man, and selleth him, if he is convicted of the guilt, die he by death.

¹⁸If 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, ¹⁹if he riseth (up), and goeth forth on his staff, he that smote (him) shall be innocent; so nevertheless that he restore (to him for) his travails, and his costs in leaches.

²⁰He 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. ²¹Soothly if the servant liveth over this beating one day, or twain, the smiter shall not be subject to the pain of death, for the servant is his master’s chattel.

²²If 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 (for), and as the judges deem (appropriate). ²³Soothly if the death of her followeth, he shall yield life for life, ²⁴eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, ²⁵burning for burning, wound for wound, sore for sore.

²⁶If 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. ²⁷Also if he smite out a tooth of his servant, or (of) [his] handmaid, in like manner he shall deliver them free.

²⁸If 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. ²⁹That if the ox was an horn-putter from yesterday and the third day ago, and men warned his lord, (yet) neither the lord closed him, and he slayeth a man, or a woman, both the ox shall be thrown adown with stones, and they shall slay his lord; ³⁰that if the price be put to the lord, he shall give for his life whatever he is asked. ³¹And if he smiteth with (his) horn a man’s son, and his daughter, his lord shall be subject to the same sentence. ³²If 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.

³³If any man openeth a cistern, or a pit, and diggeth it, and covereth it not, and an ox either an ass falleth into it, ³⁴the lord of the cistern shall yield the price of the beasts; forsooth that that is dead shall be his.

³⁵If one man’s ox woundeth the ox of another man, and he is dead, they shall sell the quick ox, and they shall part the price; soothly they shall part betwixt them(selves) the carcass of the dead ox. ³⁶Forsooth if the lord knew, that his ox was a (horn)-putter from yesterday and the third day ago, and kept not him, he shall yield (another) ox for (the dead) ox, and he shall take the whole dead carcass.