Deuteronomy 24:10-25

English Standard Version

¹⁰“When you make your neighbor a loan of any sort, you shall not go into his house to collect his pledge. ¹¹You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall bring the pledge out to you. ¹²And if he is a poor man, you shall not sleep in his pledge. ¹³^(A)You shall restore to him the pledge as the sun sets, that he may sleep in his cloak and ^(B)bless you. And ^(C)it shall be righteousness for you before the Lord your God.

¹⁴“You shall not ^(D)oppress a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the sojourners who are in your land within your towns. ¹⁵^(E)You shall give him his wages on the same day, before the sun sets (for he is poor and counts on it), ^(F)lest he cry against you to the Lord, and you be guilty of sin.

¹⁶^(G)“Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.

¹⁷^(H)“You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless, ^(I)or take a widow's garment in pledge, ¹⁸but ^(J)you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this.

¹⁹^(K)“When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, ^(L)that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. ²⁰When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over them again. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. ²¹When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not strip it afterward. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. ²²^(M)You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this.

25 “If there is a ^(N)dispute between men and they come into court and the judges decide between them, ^(O)acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty, ²then if the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall cause him to lie down and be beaten in his presence with a number of stripes in proportion to his offense. ³^(P)Forty stripes may be given him, but not more, lest, if one should go on to beat him with more stripes than these, your brother be degraded in your sight.

⁴^(Q)“You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain.

Laws Concerning Levirate Marriage

⁵^(R)“If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her ^(S)husband's brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. ⁶And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that ^(T)his name may not be blotted out of Israel. ⁷And if the man does not wish to take his brother's wife, then his brother's wife shall ^(U)go up to the gate to the elders and say, ‘My husband's brother refuses to perpetuate his brother's name in Israel; he will not perform the duty of a husband's brother to me.’ ⁸Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him, and if he persists, saying, ^(V)‘I do not wish to take her,’ ⁹then his brother's wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders and ^(W)pull his sandal off his foot and ^(X)spit in his face. And she shall answer and say, ‘So shall it be done to the man who does not ^(Y)build up his brother's house.’ ¹⁰And the name of his house^[a] shall be called in Israel, ‘The house of him who had his sandal pulled off.’