Hammurabi - Hammurabi's Laws

Hammurabi's Laws

• If someone cuts down a tree on someone else's land, he will pay for it.
• If someone is careless when watering his fields, and he floods someone else's by accident, he will pay for the grain he has ruined.
• If a man wants to throw his son out of the house, he has to go before a judge and say, "I don't want my son to live in my house any more." The judge will find out the reasons. If the reasons are not good, the man can't throw his son out.
• If the son has done some great evil to his father, his father must forgive him the first time. But if he has done something evil twice, his father can throw him out.
• If a thief steals a cow, a sheep, a donkey, a pig, or a goat, he will pay ten times what it is worth. If he doesn't have any money to pay with, he will be put to death.
• An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. If a man puts out the eye of another man, put his own eye out. If he knocks out another man's tooth, knock out his own tooth. If he breaks another man's bone, break his own bone.
• If a doctor operates a patient and the patient dies, the doctor's hand will be cut off.
• If a builder builds a house, and that house collapses and kills the owner's son, the builder's son will be put to death.
• If a robber is caught breaking a hole into the house so that he can get in and steal, he will be put to death in front of that hole.
• If a son strike his own father, his hands shall be cut off.