Exodus chapter 21

Laws about slaves

Now these are the rules that you shall set before them.

When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years,

and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.

If he comes in single, he shall go out single.

If he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him.

If his master gives him a wife, and she bears him sons or daughters,

the wife and her children shall be her masters, and he shall go out alone.

But if the slave plainly says,

I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go out free,

then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost,

and his master shall bore his ear through with an all, and he shall be his slave forever.

When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do.

If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be

redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her.

If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. If he takes another wife to himself,

he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her,

she shall go out for nothing without payment of money.

Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death.

But if he did not lie in wait for him,

but God let him fall into his hand,

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