Study Desk

"No one shall seize a handmill or an upper millstone as a pledge for a loan, since he would be seizing the debtor's means of life as a pledge.

"If someone is caught kidnapping any of his countrymen of the sons of Israel, and he treats him as merchandise and sells him, then that thief shall die; so you shall eliminate the evil from among you.

"Be careful about an infestation of leprosy, that you are very attentive and act in accordance with everything that the Levitical priests teach you; just as I have commanded them, you shall be careful to act.

"When you make your neighbor a loan of any kind, you shall not enter his house to take his pledge.

"You shall stand outside, and the person to whom you are making the loan shall bring the pledge outside to you.

"And if he is a poor man, you shall not sleep with his pledge.

"When the sun goes down you shall certainly return the pledge to him, so that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you; and it will be righteousness for you before the LORD your God.

"You shall not exploit a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your countrymen or one of your strangers who are in your land in your towns.

"You shall give him his wages on his day before the sun sets—for he is poor and sets his heart on it—so that he does not cry out against you to the LORD, and it becomes a sin in you.

"Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin alone.

"You shall not pervert the justice due a stranger or an orphan, nor seize a widow's garment as a pledge.

"When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you are not to go back to get it; it shall belong to the stranger, the orphan, and to the widow, in order that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

"When you beat the olives off your olive tree, you are not to search through the branches again; that shall be left for the stranger, the orphan, and for the widow.

"When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you are not to go over it again; that shall be left for the stranger, the orphan, and the widow.

"And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I am commanding you to do this thing.

then it shall be if the wicked person deserves to be beaten, the judge shall then make him lie down and have him beaten in his presence with the number of lashes according to his wrongful act.

"You shall not muzzle the ox while it is threshing.

"When brothers live together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a strange man. Her husband's brother shall have relations with her and take her to himself as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her.

"It shall then be that the firstborn to whom she gives birth shall assume the name of his father's deceased brother, so that his name will not be wiped out from Israel.

"But if the man does not desire to take his brother's widow, then his brother's widow shall go up to the gate to the elders, and say, 'My husband's brother refuses to establish a name for his brother in Israel; he is not willing to perform the duty of a husband's brother to me.'