Study Desk

"If there is a dispute between people and they go to court, and the judges decide their case, and they declare the righteous innocent and pronounce the wicked guilty,

If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked.

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.

And it shall be, if the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down, and to be beaten before his face, according to his fault, by a certain number.

"He may have him beaten forty times, but not more, so that he does not have him beaten with many more lashes than these, and that your brother does not become contemptible in your eyes.

Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed: lest, if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee.

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

Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.

"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.

If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto 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.

And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of 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.'

And if the man like not to take his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband's brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband's brother.

"Then the elders of his city shall summon him and speak to him. And if he persists and says, 'I do not desire to take her,'

Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak unto him: and if he stand to it, and say, I like not to take her;

then his brother's widow shall come up to him in the sight of the elders, and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face; and she shall declare, 'This is what is done to the man who does not build up his brother's house!'

Then shall his brother's wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother's house.

"And in Israel his family shall be called by the name, 'The house of him whose sandal was removed.'

And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.

"If two men, a man and his countryman, have a fight with each other, and the wife of one comes up to save her husband from the hand of the one who is hitting him, and she reaches out with her hand and grasps that man's genitals,

When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets:

then you shall cut off her hand; you shall not show pity.

Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her.

"You shall not have in your bag differing weights, a large and a small.

Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small.

"You shall not have in your house differing measures, a large and a small.

Thou shalt not have in thine house divers measures, a great and a small.

"You shall have a correct and honest weight; you shall have a correct and honest measure, so that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God is giving you.

But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

"For everyone who does these things, everyone who acts unjustly is an abomination to the LORD your God.

For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the Lord thy God.

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

Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way, when ye were come forth out of Egypt;

how he confronted you on the way and attacked among you all the stragglers at your rear when you were tired and weary; and he did not fear God.

How he met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary; and he feared not God.

"So it shall come about, when the LORD your God has given you rest from all your surrounding enemies in the land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, that you shall wipe out the mention of the name Amalek from under heaven; you must not forget.

Therefore it shall be, when the Lord thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it.