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Exodus · Literal Standard Version

Exodus 21 Literal Standard Version

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About LSV
  • Protestant
  • OT: Masoretic Hebrew
  • NT: Majority (Byzantine) text
  • Protestant (66 books)
  • Very literal
  • 2020
  • CC BY-SA 4.0

Audio: World English Bible (WEB), read by Winfred W. Henson · About the recordings

1 And these [are] the judgments which you set before them: 2 When you buy a Hebrew servant, he serves [for] six years, and in the seventh he goes out as a freeman for nothing; 3 if he comes in by himself, he goes out by himself; if he [is] owner of a wife, then his wife has gone out with him; 4 if his lord gives a wife to him, and she has borne sons or daughters to him—the wife and her children are her lord’s, and he goes out by himself. 5 And if the servant really says: I have loved my lord, my wife, and my sons—I do not go out free, 6 then his lord has brought him near to God, and has brought him near to the door, or to the doorpost, and his lord has bored his ear with an awl, and he has served him for all time. 7 And when a man sells his daughter for a handmaid, she does not go out according to the going out of the menservants; 8 if [it is] evil in the eyes of her lord, so that he has not betrothed her, then he has let her be ransomed; he has no power to sell her to a strange people, in his dealing treacherously with her. 9 And if he betroths her to his son, he does to her according to the right of daughters. 10 If he takes another [woman] for him, he does not withdraw her food, her covering, and her habitation; 11 and if he does not do these three for her, then she has gone out for nothing, without money. 12 He who strikes a man so that he has died is certainly put to death; 13 as for him who has not laid wait, but God has brought [him] to his hand, I have even set a place for you to where he flees. 14 And when a man presumes against his neighbor to slay him with subtlety, you take him from My altar to die. 15 And he who strikes his father or his mother is certainly put to death. 16 And he who steals a man, and has sold him, and he has been found in his hand, is certainly put to death. 17 And he who is reviling his father or his mother is certainly put to death. 18 And when men contend, and a man has struck his neighbor with a stone, or with the fist, and he does not die, but has fallen on the bed; 19 if he rises, and has gone up and down outside on his staff, then the striker has been acquitted; he only gives [for] his cessation, and he is thoroughly healed. 20 And when a man strikes his manservant or his handmaid with a rod, and he has died under his hand—he is certainly avenged; 21 only if he remains a day, or two days, he is not avenged, for he [is] his money. 22 And when men strive, and have struck a pregnant woman, and her children have come out, and there is no harm [to them], he is certainly fined as the husband of the woman lays on him, and he has given through the judges; 23 and if there is harm [to them], then you have given life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. 26 And when a man strikes the eye of his manservant, or the eye of his handmaid, and has destroyed it, he sends him away as a freeman for his eye; 27 and if he knocks out a tooth of his manservant or a tooth of his handmaid, he sends him away as a freeman for his tooth. 28 And when an ox gores man or woman, and they have died, the ox is certainly stoned, and his flesh is not eaten, and the owner of the ox [is] acquitted; 29 and if the ox is [one] accustomed to gore before, and it has been testified to its owner, and he does not watch it, and it has put to death a man or woman, the ox is stoned, and its owner is also put to death. 30 If atonement is laid on him, then he has given the ransom of his life, according to all that is laid on him; 31 whether it gores a son or gores a daughter, according to this judgment it is done to him. 32 If the ox gores a manservant or a handmaid, he gives thirty silver shekels to their lord, and the ox is stoned. 33 And when a man opens a pit, or when a man digs a pit, and does not cover it, and an ox or donkey has fallen [in] there— 34 the owner of the pit repays, he gives back money to its owner, and the dead is his. 35 And when a man’s ox strikes the ox of his neighbor and it has died, then they have sold the living ox, and halved its money, and they also halve the dead one; 36 or, [if] it has been known that the ox is [one] accustomed to gore before, and its owner does not watch it, he certainly repays ox for ox, and the dead is his.

Cross references (28)

Related passages for each verse, from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge as collected and ranked by readers at OpenBible.info.

  1. 1 Deuteronomy 4:14; Deuteronomy 6:20; Exodus 24:3–4; Psalm 147:19; Matthew 28:20
  2. 2 Deuteronomy 15:12–15; Exodus 12:44; Deuteronomy 15:18; Nehemiah 5:1–5; Deuteronomy 15:1
  3. 3 Deuteronomy 15:12–14
  4. 5 2 Corinthians 5:14–15; Deuteronomy 15:16–17; Isaiah 26:13
  5. 6 Deuteronomy 15:17; Leviticus 25:40; Deuteronomy 19:17–18; 1 Samuel 28:2; 1 Samuel 27:12
  6. 7 Nehemiah 5:5; Exodus 21:2–3
  7. 8 Judges 14:3; Judges 9:19; Malachi 2:11–15; Genesis 28:8; Deuteronomy 21:11–14
  8. 10 1 Corinthians 7:1–6
  9. 12 Genesis 9:6; Matthew 26:52; Leviticus 24:17; Numbers 35:30–31; Numbers 35:16–24
  10. 13 Joshua 20:2–9; 1 Samuel 24:18; Deuteronomy 19:1–13; Deuteronomy 4:41–43; 1 Samuel 24:10
  11. 14 1 Kings 2:28–34; Hebrews 10:26; Deuteronomy 1:43; 1 Kings 1:50–51; Numbers 15:30–31
  12. 15 Proverbs 30:11; Deuteronomy 21:18–21; 1 Timothy 1:9; Deuteronomy 27:24; Proverbs 30:17
  13. 16 Deuteronomy 24:7; 1 Timothy 1:10; Exodus 22:4; Genesis 37:28; Genesis 40:15
  14. 17 Proverbs 20:20; Mark 7:10–11; Matthew 15:3–6; Deuteronomy 27:16; Proverbs 30:11
  15. 18 Exodus 21:20; Exodus 2:13; Deuteronomy 25:11; 2 Samuel 14:6; Numbers 35:16–24
  16. 19 2 Samuel 3:29; Zechariah 8:4
  17. 20 Proverbs 29:19; Deuteronomy 19:21; Isaiah 58:3–4; Numbers 35:30–33; Romans 13:4
  18. 21 Leviticus 25:44–46
  19. 22 Deuteronomy 22:18–19; Exodus 21:30; Deuteronomy 16:18
  20. 23 Deuteronomy 19:21; Numbers 35:31; Leviticus 24:19
  21. 24 Deuteronomy 19:21; Matthew 7:2; Matthew 5:38–40; Leviticus 24:19–20; Revelation 16:6
  22. 26 Nehemiah 5:5; Job 31:13–15; Colossians 4:1; Psalm 72:12–14; Exodus 21:20
  23. 28 Exodus 21:32; Genesis 9:5–6; Leviticus 20:15–16
  24. 29 Deuteronomy 21:1–9
  25. 30 Exodus 21:22; Exodus 30:12; Numbers 35:31–33; Proverbs 13:8
  26. 32 Zechariah 11:12–13; Matthew 26:15; Matthew 27:3–9; Genesis 37:28; Philippians 2:7
  27. 33 Jeremiah 18:22; Proverbs 28:10; Psalm 9:15; Ecclesiastes 10:8; Jeremiah 18:20
  28. 34 Exodus 21:29–30; Exodus 22:6; Exodus 22:14

Cross references: OpenBible.info (CC BY), drawn mainly from the public-domain Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. · Sources & licences

What the Fathers said

Passages from the Church Fathers that expound or quote this chapter, verbatim from the public-domain Schaff edition (19th-century English translations).

How these were chosen

“Commentary” is the opening of a homily or exposition on this chapter (John Chrysostom’s homilies, Augustine’s tractates, sermons and expositions of the Psalms). “Quotes” are sentences where the edition’s own footnotes identify a quotation of a verse here, kept only when the wording matches the verse. Only works whose authorship is not in doubt are used. Psalms follow the Hebrew/English numbering (Augustine numbers them as the Septuagint does: his Psalm 50 is Psalm 51 here).

  1. Quotes verse 21:17 John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew (Homily LI)

    For, "honor," saith He, "thy father and thy mother, that thou mayest live long upon the earth." And again, "He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death." But He, omitting the first, the reward appointed for them that honor their parents, states that which is more awful, the punishment, I mean, threatened to such as dishonor them; …

    Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 10 (1888)

  2. Quotes verse 21:17 Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures (Lecture VII)

    … put no obstacle to godliness in our way, if we are ever carried away by ingratitude, and, forgetting their benefits to us, hold them in contempt, then the oracle will have place which says, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.

    Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 7 (1894)