Skip to the text

Exodus · Unlocked Literal Bible

Exodus 21 Unlocked Literal Bible

Leer en español
About ULB
  • Protestant
  • OT: Masoretic Hebrew
  • NT: Critical text (not verified)
  • Protestant (66 books)
  • Formal (word for word)
  • 2017
  • CC BY-SA 4.0

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

1 “Now these are the decrees that you must set before them: 2 'If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve for six years, and in the seventh year he will go free without paying anything. 3 If he came by himself, he must go free by himself; if he is married, then his wife must go free with him. 4 If his master gave him a wife and she bore him sons or daughters, the wife and her children will belong to her master, and he must go free by himself. 5 But if the servant plainly says, “I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,” 6 then his master must bring him to God. The master must bring him to a door or doorpost, and his master must bore his ear through with an awl. Then the servant will serve him for life. 7 If a man sells his daughter as a female servant, she must not go free as the male servants do. 8 If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he must let her be bought back. He has no right to sell her to a foreign people. He has no such right, since he has treated her deceitfully. 9 If her master designates her as a wife for his son, he must treat her the same as if she were his daughter. 10 If he takes another wife for himself, he must not diminish her food, clothing, or her marital rights. 11 But if he does not provide these three things for her, then she can go free without paying any money. 12 Whoever strikes a man so that he dies, that person must surely be put to death. 13 If the man did not do it with premeditation, but instead by accident, then I will fix a place to where he can flee. 14 If a man willfully attacks his neighbor and kills him according to a cunning plan, then you must take him, even if he is at God's altar, so that he may die. 15 Whoever hits his father or mother must surely be put to death. 16 Whoever kidnaps a person—whether the kidnapper sells him, or that person is found in his hand—that kidnapper must be put to death. 17 Whoever curses his father or his mother must surely be put to death. 18 If men fight and one hits the other with a stone or with his fist, and that person does not die, but is confined to his bed; 19 then if he recovers and is able to walk about using his staff, the man who struck him must pay for the loss of his time; he must also pay for his complete recovery. But that man is not guilty of murder. 20 If a man hits his male servant or his female servant with a staff, and if the servant dies as a result of the blow, then that man must surely be punished. 21 However, if the servant lives for a day or two, the master must not be punished, for he will have suffered the loss of the servant. 22 If men fight together and hurt a pregnant woman so that she miscarries, but there is no other injury to her, then the guilty man must surely be fined as the woman's husband demands it from him, and he must pay as the judges determine. 23 But if there is serious injury, then you must give a life for a life, 24 an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot, 25 a burn for a burn, a wound for a wound, or a bruise for a bruise. 26 If a man hits the eye of his male servant or of his female servant and destroys it, then he must let the servant go free in compensation for his eye. 27 If he knocks out a tooth of his male servant or female servant, he must let the servant go free as compensation for the tooth. 28 If an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox must surely be stoned, and its flesh must not be eaten; but the ox's owner must be acquitted of guilt. 29 But if the ox had a habit of goring in the past, and its owner was warned but did not keep it in, and the ox has killed a man or a woman, that ox must be stoned, and its owner also must be put to death. 30 If a payment is required for his life, he must pay whatever he is required to pay. 31 If the ox has gored a man's son or daughter, the ox's owner must do what this decree requires him to do. 32 If the ox gores a male servant or a female servant, the ox's owner must pay thirty shekels of silver, and the ox must be stoned. 33 If a man opens a pit, or if a man digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it, 34 the owner of the pit must repay the loss. He must give money to the dead animal's owner, and the dead animal will become his. 35 If one man's ox hurts another man's ox so that it dies, then they must sell the live ox and divide its price, and they must also divide the dead ox. 36 But if it was known that the ox had a habit of goring in time past, and its owner has not kept it in, he must surely pay ox for ox, and the dead animal will become his own.

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)