Knox Bible

1

And these laws, he said, thou shalt promulgate to them.✻

2

If thou dost buy a slave that is a Hebrew by race, he shall do thee six years’ service, and in the seventh year, without any ransom paid, he shall go free.

3

He shall leave thy service in the same guise in which he entered it;✻ if he came to thee married, his wife shall go free with him.

4

But if his master has assigned a wife to him, and she has borne sons and daughters, this woman and her children shall belong to the master; the slave shall go free in the same guise as before.

5

It may be that the slave, for love of his master, and of his own wife and children, will refuse to take his leave;

6

if so, his master shall bring him before the judgement-seat, and then fasten his ear with an auger to door or door-post, in token that the man is his slave in perpetuity.✻

7

If anyone sells his daughter into a man’s service, she is not to go free on the same conditions as a slave.✻

8

The master to whom she has been made over may send her away, if he has no liking for her, but he may not sell her to foreign masters; he has done her despite enough already.

9

He may betroth her, if he will, to his son; but if he does that, he must treat her as his daughter;

10

and if he finds his son another wife instead, he must marry the girl off, and give her clothes, and make all amends for the loss of her virginity.✻

11

If he is not prepared to do these three things, then she must go free, with no ransom paid for her.

12

Whoever kills a man with intent to kill, must pay for it with his life.

13

But where there was no malice aforethought, and God provides the occasion,✻ he shall be allowed to find refuge in such place as I shall appoint for thee.

14

One who lies in wait on purpose to kill his neighbour shall be torn away even from my altar to die.

15

Death is the penalty for one who kills his father or his mother;

16

death is the penalty when a man is shewn to have carried off his fellow-man and sold him;

17

death is the penalty for one who curses father or mother.

18

Two fall out, and one is struck with a stone, or with the fist, not fatally, but so that he must take to his bed;

19

must the man who struck the blow be held guilty? Only till the other is well enough to get up and walk abroad with a stick; but he must compensate him for his loss of work, and for the doctor’s charges.

20

When a man beats his servant or his handmaid to death, if death follows at once, he must pay the full penalty;

21

but if they survive for a day or more, he shall go unpunished; the loss is his.

22

If men fall out, and one of them strikes a woman who is pregnant, so that the child is still-born, but she herself lives, he must pay whatever sum the woman’s husband demands, and the judges agree to;

23

if her death follows, then life must pay for life.✻

24

So it is to be; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,✻ a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot;

25

burning for burning, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

26

If anyone gives servant or handmaid a blow on the eye, so that the sight of it is lost, he must set them free in return for the sight he robbed them of;

27

or if he knocks out a tooth, he must let servant or handmaid go free by the same title.

28

If an ox gores a man or woman to death, it shall be stoned, and the flesh of it is not to be eaten. But the owner of the ox shall be held innocent,

29

unless the ox has been using its horns for some time past, and he has refused to shut it away when appeal was made to him. Then, if the ox gores man or woman, it shall be stoned, and he too shall be put to death,

30

unless a fine is imposed on him instead; if so, he shall pay whatever ransom is demanded for his life.

31

The parents shall have the same claim upon him, whether it be a son or daughter of theirs the ox has gored;

32

if it has attacked man-servant or woman-servant, the owner must pay thirty silver pieces, and the ox must be stoned.

33

If a man who has opened an old well, or is digging a new one, does not cover it up, and ox or ass falls into it,

34

the owner of the well shall pay the full value of the beasts; the carcase he may keep for himself.

35

If one man’s ox is wounded by another’s, and dies of it, they shall sell the live ox and share the price of it, dividing the carcase of the dead ox between them;

36

unless it has been known for some time past that the live ox was using its horns, and the owner has not kept it under control. If so, he shall restore ox for ox, and keep the whole carcase for himself.