Deuteronomy 25
1 “When there is a strife between men, and they have come near to the judgment, and they have judged, and declared righteous the righteous, and declared wrong the wrongdoer,
“If [two] Israelis have a dispute and they go to a court, the judge will [probably] decide/declare that one of them (is innocent/did not do any wrong) and the other one is guilty.
2 then it has come to pass, if the wrongdoer is to be struck, that the judge has caused him to fall down, and [one] has struck him in his presence, according to the sufficiency of his wrongdoing, by number;
If the judge says that the guilty person must be punished, he shall command him to lie [with his face] on the ground and be whipped. The number of times he is struck with a whip will depend on [what kind of] crime he committed.
3 he strikes him forty [times]; he is not adding, lest he is adding to strike him above these many stripes, and your brother be lightly esteemed in your eyes.
It is permitted that he be struck as many as 40 times, but no more than that. If he is struck more than 40 times, he would be humiliated publicly.
4 You do not muzzle an ox in its threshing.
When your ox is treading/walking on the grain [to separate the chaff from the grain], do not (muzzle it/put a covering on its mouth) [to prevent it from eating some of the grain].
5 When brothers dwell together, and one of them has died and has no son, the wife of the dead is not given to a strange man; her husband’s brother goes in to her, and has taken her to him for a wife, and performs the duty of her husband’s brother;
If two brothers live on the same property, and one of them who has no son dies, the man’s widow should not marry someone who is not a member of his family. The dead man’s brother must marry her and have sex [EUP] with her. It is his duty to do that.
6 and it has been, the firstborn which she bears rises for the name of his dead brother, and his name is not wiped away out of Israel.
If she later gives birth to a son, that son is to be considered [MTY] the son of the man who died, in order that the dead man’s name will not disappear from Israel.
7 And if the man does not delight to take his brother’s wife, then his brother’s wife has gone up to the gate, to the elderly, and said, My husband’s brother is refusing to raise up a name for his brother in Israel; he has not been willing to perform the duty of my husband’s brother;
“But if the dead man’s brother does not want to marry that woman, she must stand at the (gate/central meeting place) of the town and say to the [town] elders, ‘My husband’s brother will not do (his duty/what he is supposed to do). He refuses to [marry me in order that I may give birth to a son who will] prevent my dead husband’s name from disappearing in Israel.’
8 and [the] elderly of his city have called for him, and spoken to him, and he has stood and said, I have no desire to take her.
Then the elders must summon that man and talk to him. If he still refuses to marry that widow,
9 Then his brother’s wife has drawn near to him before the eyes of the elderly, and drawn his shoe from off his foot, and spat in his face, and answered and said, Thus it is done to the man who does not build up the house of his brother;
she must go up to him while the elders are watching, and take off one of his sandals [to symbolize/show that he would not receive any of her property], and spit in his face, and say to him, ‘This is what happens to the man who refuses to do what is needed [to allow his dead brother to have a son] in order that our family name does not disappear.’
10 and his name has been called in Israel, The house of him whose shoe is drawn off.
After that happens, that man’s family will be known as ‘the family of the man whose sandal was pulled off’.
11 When men strive together with one another, and the wife of one has drawn near to deliver her husband out of the hand of his striker, and has put forth her hand, and laid hold on his private parts,
When [two] men are fighting with each other, and the one man’s wife comes near to help her husband by grabbing hold of the other man’s genitals,
12 then you have cut off her hand; your eye does not spare.
do not act mercifully toward her; cut off her hand.
13 You do not have [both] a great stone and a small stone in your bag.
“[When you are buying or selling things], do not try to cheat people by having two kinds of weights, [one which you use when you buy something and one which you use when you sell something], and two kinds of measuring baskets, [one which you use when you buy something and one which you use when you sell something].
14 You do not have a great ephah and a small ephah in your house.
15 You have a complete and just stone, [and] you have a complete and just ephah, so that they prolong your days on the ground which your God YHWH is giving to you;
Always use correct weights and correct measuring baskets, in order that Yahweh our God will allow you to live a long time in the land that he is giving to you.
16 for anyone doing these things, anyone doing iniquity, [is] an abomination [to] your God YHWH.
Yahweh hates all those who act dishonestly, [and he will punish them].
17 Remember that which Amalek has done to you in the way in your going out from Egypt,
Continue to remember what the Amalek people-group did to your ancestors when they were coming out of Egypt.
18 that he has met you in the way, and strikes among you all those feeble behind you (when you [were] weary and fatigued), and is not fearing God.
They attacked your ancestors as your ancestors were traveling, when they were weak and exhausted. Those people were not afraid of God at all, so they attacked your ancestors from the rear and killed all those who were unable to walk as fast as the others.
19 And it has been, in your God YHWH giving rest to you from all your surrounding enemies, in the land which your God YHWH is giving to you [for] an inheritance to possess it, you blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under the heavens—you do not forget.”
Therefore, when Yahweh our God has given you the land [that he promised to give you], and when he has enabled you to rest from [fighting] all your enemies around you, kill all the Amalek people-group, with the result that no one will remember them any more. Do not forget [to do this]!”
