---
title: "Exodus 21 – Catholic Bible (CPDV) & Latin Vulgate · Bless"
url: https://blessbible.app/bible/exodus/21/
description: "Laws relating to Justice. Exodus 21 in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin Vulgate."
---

# Exodus 21

Exodus 21 is chapter 21 of 40 in the Book of Exodus. Here are all 36 verses in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin of the Clementine Vulgate beside them.

> Laws relating to Justice.
>
> — Bp. Richard Challoner, chapter summary

## Exodus 21 (Catholic Public Domain Version)

1. “These are the judgments which you shall place before them:
2. If you buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve you; in the seventh, he shall depart freely, without charge.
3. With whatever clothing he arrived, with the like let him depart. If he has a wife, his wife also shall depart, at the same time.
4. But if his lord gave him a wife, and she has borne sons and daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her lord. Yet still, he himself will go out with his clothing.
5. And if the servant will say, ‘I love my lord, and my wife and children, I will not depart freely,’
6. then his lord shall make an offering for him to the heavens, and it shall be applied to the door and the posts, and he will pierce his ear with an awl. And he shall be his servant in perpetuity.
7. If anyone sells his daughter to be a servant, she shall not depart as a female servant is accustomed to go out.
8. If she displeases the eyes of her lord, to whom she had been delivered, he shall dismiss her. But he shall have no authority to sell her to a foreign people, even if he despises her.
9. But if he has betrothed her to his son, he shall treat her according to the custom with daughters.
10. And if he takes another for him, he shall provide to the maiden a marriage, and clothing, and he shall not refuse the price of her chastity.
11. If he does not do these three things, she shall depart freely, without money.
12. Whoever strikes a man, intending to murder, shall be put to death.
13. But if he did not lie in wait for him, but God delivered him into his hands, then I will appoint for you a place to which he must flee.
14. If someone murders his neighbor with deliberation, by lying in wait, you shall tear him away from my altar, so that he may die.
15. Whoever strikes his father or mother shall die a death.
16. Whoever will have stolen a man and sold him, having been convicted of the crime, shall be put to death.
17. Whoever speaks evil of his father or mother shall die a death.
18. If men will have quarreled, and one of them has struck his neighbor with a stone or a fist, and he does not die, but lies in bed,
19. if he gets up again and can walk outside on his staff, he who struck him will be innocent, but only if he makes sufficient restitution for his deeds and for the cost of the physicians.
20. Whoever strikes his male or female servant with a staff, and if they have died by his hands, he shall be guilty of a crime.
21. But if he survives for one day or two, he shall not be subject to punishment, because it is his money.
22. If men will have quarreled, and one of them has struck a pregnant woman, and as a result she miscarries, but she herself survives, he shall be subject to as much damage as the husband of the woman shall petition from him, or as arbitrators shall judge.
23. But if her death will have followed, he will repay 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 scrape for a scrape, a wound for a wound, a bruise for a bruise.
26. If anyone will have struck the eye of his male or female servant, having left them with one eye, he shall release them freely, because of the eye that he has put out.
27. Likewise, if he knocks out a tooth of his male or female servant, he shall similarly release them freely.
28. If an ox has struck a man or a woman with his horn, and if they die, it shall be stoned. And its flesh shall not be eaten; also, the owner of the ox will be innocent.
29. But if the ox had been pushing with his horn, from yesterday and the day before, and they warned his owner, but he did not confine it, and it will have killed a man or a woman, then the ox shall be stoned, and his owner shall be killed.
30. But if they have imposed a price on him, he shall give, in exchange for his life, whatever is asked.
31. Likewise, if it has struck a son or a daughter with its horns, it shall be subject to a similar verdict.
32. If it attacks a male or female servant, he shall give thirty shekels of silver to their lord, yet truly the ox shall be stoned.
33. If a man digs or opens a cistern, and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it,
34. then the owner of the cistern shall repay the price of the beasts, and what is dead will belong to him.
35. If the ox of a stranger wounds the ox of another, and it has died, then they shall sell the live ox and divide the price, but the carcass of the dead one they shall distribute between them.
36. But if he knew that his ox had pushed with its horns, yesterday and the day before, and its owner did not confine it, then he shall repay an ox for an ox, and he will receive the whole carcass.”

## Exodus 21 in Latin (Clementine Vulgate, 1592)

1. Hæc sunt judicia quæ propones eis.
2. Si emeris servum hebræum, sex annis serviet tibi: in septimo egredietur liber gratis.
3. Cum quali veste intraverit, cum tali exeat: si habens uxorem, et uxor egredietur simul.
4. Sin autem dominus dederit illi uxorem, et pepererit filios et filias: mulier et liberi ejus erunt domini sui, ipse vero exibit cum vestitu suo.
5. Quod si dixerit servus: Diligo dominum meum et uxorem ac liberos; non egrediar liber:
6. offeret eum dominus diis, et applicabitur ad ostium et postes, perforabitque aurem ejus subula: et erit ei servus in sæculum.
7. Si quis vendiderit filiam suam in famulam, non egredietur sicut ancillæ exire consueverunt.
8. Si displicuerit oculis domini sui cui tradita fuerat, dimittet eam: populo autem alieno vendendi non habebit potestatem, si spreverit eam.
9. Sin autem filio suo desponderit eam, juxta morem filiarum faciet illi.
10. Quod si alteram ei acceperit, providebit puellæ nuptias, et vestimenta, et pretium pudicitiæ non negabit.
11. Si tria ista non fecerit, egredietur gratis absque pecunia.
12. Qui percusserit hominem volens occidere, morte moriatur.
13. Qui autem non est insidiatus, sed Deus illum tradidit in manus ejus, constituam tibi locum in quem fugere debeat.
14. Si quis per industriam occiderit proximum suum, et per insidias: ab altari meo evelles eum, ut moriatur.
15. Qui percusserit patrem suum aut matrem, morte moriatur.
16. Qui furatus fuerit hominem, et vendiderit eum, convictus noxæ, morte moriatur.
17. Qui maledixerit patri suo, vel matri, morte moriatur.
18. Si rixati fuerint viri, et percusserit alter proximum suum lapide vel pugno, et ille mortuus non fuerit, sed jacuerit in lectulo:
19. si surrexerit, et ambulaverit foris super baculum suum, innocens erit qui percusserit, ita tamen ut operas ejus et impensas in medicos restituat.
20. Qui percusserit servum suum, vel ancillam virga, et mortui fuerint in manibus ejus, criminis reus erit.
21. Sin autem uno die vel duobus supervixerit, non subjacebit pœnæ, quia pecunia illius est.
22. Si rixati fuerint viri, et percusserit quis mulierem prægnantem, et abortivum quidem fecerit, sed ipsa vixerit: subjacebit damno quantum maritus mulieris expetierit, et arbitri judicaverint.
23. Sin autem mors ejus fuerit subsecuta, reddet animam pro anima,
24. oculum pro oculo, dentem pro dente, manum pro manu, pedem pro pede,
25. adustionem pro adustione, vulnus pro vulnere, livorem pro livore.
26. Si percusserit quispiam oculum servi sui aut ancillæ, et luscos eos fecerit, dimittet eos liberos pro oculo quem eruit.
27. Dentem quoque si excusserit servo vel ancillæ suæ, similiter dimittet eos liberos.
28. Si bos cornu percusserit virum aut mulierem, et mortui fuerint, lapidibus obruetur: et non comedentur carnes ejus, dominus quoque bovis innocens erit.
29. Quod si bos cornupeta fuerit ab heri et nudiustertius, et contestati sunt dominum ejus, nec recluserit eum, occideritque virum aut mulierem: et bos lapidibus obruetur, et dominum ejus occident.
30. Quod si pretium fuerit ei impositum, dabit pro anima sua quidquid fuerit postulatus.
31. Filium quoque et filiam si cornu percusserit, simili sententiæ subjacebit.
32. Si servum ancillamque invaserit, triginta siclos argenti domino dabit, bos vero lapidibus opprimetur.
33. Si quis aperuerit cisternam, et foderit, et non operuerit eam, cecideritque bos aut asinus in eam,
34. reddet dominus cisternæ pretium jumentorum: quod autem mortuum est, ipsius erit.
35. Si bos alienus bovem alterius vulneraverit, et ille mortuus fuerit: vendent bovem vivum, et divident pretium, cadaver autem mortui inter se dispertient.
36. Sin autem sciebat quod bos cornupeta esset ab heri et nudiustertius, et non custodivit eum dominus suus: reddet bovem pro bove, et cadaver integrum accipiet.

## Bishop Challoner's notes

Bp. Richard Challoner, notes on the Douay-Rheims (1750); they comment on its older wording.
- Verse 6: Elohim. That is, to the judges, or magistrates, authorized by God.

Source: Catholic Public Domain Version (Ronald L. Conte Jr., 2009), public domain; Latin: Clementine Vulgate (1592).