World English Bible · Egypt and Sinai
Exodus 21
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"Now these are the which you shall set before them: "If you buy a servant, he shall six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free without paying anything. If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he is married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. But if the servant shall plainly say, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go out free;' then his master shall bring him to , and shall bring him to the door or to the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall him . "If a man sells his daughter to be a female servant, she shall not go out as the male servants do. If she doesn't please her master, who has married her to himself, then he shall let her be . He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt deceitfully with her. 9If he marries her to his son, he shall deal with her as a daughter. If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, and her marital rights. 11If he doesn't do these three things for her, she may go free without paying any money. "One who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to , but not if it is unintentional, but allows it to happen; then I will appoint you a place where he shall flee. If a man schemes and comes presumptuously on his neighbor to kill him, you shall take him from my , that he may . "Anyone who attacks his or his mother shall be surely put to . "Anyone who kidnaps someone and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, he shall surely be put to . "Anyone who his or his mother shall surely be put to . "If men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone, or with his fist, and he doesn't , but is confined to bed; if he rises again and walks around with his , then he who struck him shall be cleared; only he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall provide for his healing until he is thoroughly healed. "If a man strikes his servant or his maid with a , and he dies under his hand, the man shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if his servant gets up after a day or two, he shall not be punished, for the servant is his property. "If men fight and hurt a pregnant woman so that she gives birth prematurely, and yet no harm follows, he shall be surely fined as much as the woman's husband demands and the judges allow. But if any harm follows, then you must take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25burning for burning, wound for wound, and bruise for bruise. "If a man strikes his servant's eye, or his maid's eye, and destroys it, he shall let him go free for his eye's sake. 27If he strikes out his male servant's tooth, or his female servant's tooth, he shall let the servant go free for his tooth's sake. "If a bull gores a man or a woman to , the bull shall surely be stoned, and its meat shall not be eaten; but the owner of the bull shall not be held responsible. But if the bull had a habit of goring in the past, and this has been testified to its owner, and he has not kept it in, but it has killed a man or a woman, the bull shall be stoned, and its owner shall also be put to . If a is imposed on him, then he shall give for the of his life whatever is imposed. 31Whether it has gored a son or has gored a daughter, according to this it shall be done to him. If the bull gores a male servant or a female servant, thirty of silver shall be given to their master, and the ox shall be stoned. "If a man opens a pit, or if a man digs a pit and doesn't cover it, and a bull or a donkey falls into it, the owner of shall make it good. He shall give money to its owner, and animal shall be his. 35"If one man's bull injures another's, so that it dies, then they shall sell the live bull, and divide its price; and they shall also divide animal. 36Or if it is known that the bull was in the habit of goring in the past, and its owner has not kept it in, he shall surely pay bull for bull, and animal shall be his own.
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Egypt and Sinai, 1450 BC to 1200 BC ›
Israel in and then out of Egypt, at a period when Egypt was an imperial power that also controlled Canaan. The nation is formed as a people with a law before it has any land.
- Egypt
- The New Kingdom at its imperial peak, with a professional army, a chariot corps, and control reaching up through Canaan. Ramesses II reigns for sixty-six years and covers the country in monuments to himself. Egyptian power in this period is the reason Canaan is garrisoned rather than free.
- The Hittites
- The other superpower, in what is now Turkey, and Egypt's rival for the Levant. The two fight the largest chariot battle of the ancient world at Kadesh, then sign a treaty whose text survives from both sides. Hittite treaty form, with its historical prologue, stipulations, witnesses, blessings, and curses, is the shape the Sinai covenant takes, which is one of the stronger arguments for the antiquity of that material.
- The Aegean
- Mycenaean Greece: warrior kings in stone citadels at Mycenae and Pylos, keeping palace accounts in Linear B. The world of the Trojan War stories, whatever lies behind them.
- Further afield
- The Shang dynasty in China is casting extraordinary bronzes and writing questions to its ancestors on ox bones. In Mesoamerica the Olmec are beginning the first civilisation of the Americas.