Deuteronomy 25

1If there is a dispute between people and they go to court, and the judges decide between them, declaring the innocent one in the right and the guilty one in the wrong,

2then if the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge is to make him lie down and have him beaten in his presence with the number of lashes his guilt deserves.

3He may be given forty lashes, but no more. If he is beaten with many more lashes than these, your brother would be degraded in your sight.

4Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.

5If brothers live together and one of them dies without a son, the dead man’s widow must not marry outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother is to go to her, take her as his wife, and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her.

6The first son she bears is to carry on the name of the dead brother, so that his name will not be wiped out from Israel.

7But if the man does not want to marry his brother’s widow, she is to go up to the elders at the town gate and say, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to keep his brother’s name alive in Israel. He is not willing to fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to me.’

8Then the elders of his town are to summon him and speak to him. If he stands firm and says, ‘I do not want to marry her,’

9his brother’s widow is to go up to him in the presence of the elders, pull his sandal off his foot, and spit in his face. Then she is to declare, ‘This is what is done to the man who will not build up his brother’s family.’

10His family will be known in Israel as ‘The House of the Man Whose Sandal Was Pulled Off.’

11If two men are fighting each other, and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from the man who is striking him, and she reaches out and seizes the other man by his genitals,

12you are to cut off her hand. Show no pity.

13Do not have two different weights in your bag, one heavy and one light.

14Do not have two different ephah measures in your house, one large and one small.

15You must have a full and honest weight and a full and honest ephah, so that you may live long in the land that Yahweh your God is giving you.

16For everyone who does such things, everyone who acts dishonestly, is detestable to Yahweh your God.

17Remember what Amalek did to you on the way when you came out of Egypt,

18how he met you on the way and attacked all the stragglers at your rear when you were faint and weary. He did not fear God.

19So when Yahweh your God has given you rest from all your enemies around you in the land that Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, you are to blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!