Crimes against Persons

¹²He who fatally strikes a man shall be put to death. [ . . . ]

¹⁵He who strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death.

¹⁶He who kidnaps a man—whether he has sold him or is still holding him—shall be put to death.

¹⁷He who insults^a his father or his mother shall be put to death.

¹⁸When men quarrel and one strikes the other with stone or fist, and he does not die but has to take to his bed—¹⁹if he then gets up and walks outdoors upon his staff, the assailant shall go unpunished, except that he must pay for his idleness and his cure.

²⁰When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod, and he dies there and then, he must be avenged. ²¹But if he survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, since he is the other’s property.

²²When men fight, and one of them pushes a pregnant woman and a miscarriage results, but no other damage ensues, the one responsible shall be fined according as the woman’s husband may exact from him, the payment to be based on reckoning. ²³But if other damage ensues, the penalty shall be life for life, ²⁴eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, ²⁵burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

²⁶When a man strikes the eye of his slave, male or female, and destroys it, he shall let him go free on account of his eye. ²⁷If he knocks out the tooth of his slave, male or female, he shall let him go free on account of his tooth.

²⁸When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox is not to be punished. ²⁹If, however, that ox has been in the habit of goring, and its owner, though warned, has failed to guard it, and it kills a man or a woman—the ox shall be stoned and its owner, too, shall be put to death. ³⁰If ransom is laid upon him, he must pay whatever is laid upon him to redeem his life.