Deuteronomy 25:1-9 ▼

1 IF there is a lawsuit between a man and his neighbor, they shall come before the judges, and the judges shall judge them; and they shall acquit the innocent, and condemn the guilty.

2 And it shall be, if the guilty man deserves punishment, the judge shall cause him to lie down, and have him flogged in his presence, according to his offense, with a certain number of stripes.

3 Forty stripes he may give him, but not more; test, if he should exceed, and scourge him above this number of stripes, then your brother would be hurt severely before your eyes.

4 You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.

5 When brothers dwell together, and one of them dies, and has no son, the wife of the dead shall not marry to a stranger; but her husband's brother shall take her, and she shall become his wife, and he shall perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her.

6 And it shall be, that the first-born which she bears shall be named after the name of his brother who is dead, that his name may not be forgotten in Israel.

7 And if the man refuses to take his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife go up to the gate to the elders, and say, My brother-in-law refuses to raise up to his brother a name in Israel, and is unwilling to take me as a wife.

8 Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak to him; and if he should rise up and say, I will not take her;

9 Then his sister-in-law shall come to him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and say, So shall it be done to the man who will not raise a family to his brother.