Deuteronomy 25:1-9 ▼

1 If there is a dispute between men, they are to go to court to be judged, so that the innocent may be acquitted and the guilty condemned.

2 If the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall have him lie down and be flogged in his presence with the number of lashes his crime warrants.

3 He may receive no more than forty lashes, lest your brother be beaten any more than that and be degraded in your sight.

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

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

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

7 But if the man does not want to marry his brother’s widow, she is to go to the elders at the city gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to preserve his brother’s name in Israel. He is not willing to perform the duty of a brother-in-law for me.”

8 Then the elders of his city shall summon him and speak with him. If he persists and says, “I do not want to marry her,”

9 his brother’s widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, remove his sandal, spit in his face, and declare, “This is what is done to the man who will not maintain his brother’s line.”