LAWS CONCERNING THE RIGHTS OF PROPERTY.
(33-36) The legislation slides from rights of persons to rights of property easily and without effort, by passing from the injuries which cattle cause to those which they suffer. They are injured (1) by the culpable laches of persons leaving their pits uncovered; (2) by hurts which one man’s cattle inflict upon another’s. Both kinds of loss have to be made good.
33 And if a man shall open a pit, or if a man shall dig a pit, and not cover it, and an ox or an ass fall therein;
34 The owner of the pit shall make it good, and give money unto the owner of them; and the dead beast shall be his.
35 And if one man's ox hurt another's, that he die; then they shall sell the live ox, and divide the money of it; and the dead ox also they shall divide.
36 Or if it be known that the ox hath used to push in time past, and his owner hath not kept him in; he shall surely pay ox for ox; and the dead shall be his own.