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When brothers live together and one of them dies without having children, the wife of the deceased brother is not to marry a stranger from outside the family. Her brother-in-law is to come and take her as his wife and perform for her the duty of a brother-in-law. The firstborn that she bears will be recognized as a son who carries on the name of his deceased brother, so his name will not be erased from Israel. But if a man does not want to marry his sister-in-law, his sister-in-law is to go to the city gate where the elders preside and say, “My brother-in-law refuses to establish a name in Israel for his brother. He does not want to perform the duty of a brother-in-law for me.” Then the elders of his city are to call him and talk to him. If he stands firm and says, “I do not want to marry her,” his sister-in-law is to approach him in the sight of the elders. She is to pull the sandal off his foot, spit in his face, and testify by saying, “This is what is done to the man who will not build up the house of his brother!” 10 Then the name that he will go by in Israel is “the house of a man whose sandal was pulled off.”

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“When brothers dwell together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not become the wife of a man of another family;[a] her brother-in-law shall have sex with her,[b] and he shall take her to himself[c] as a wife, and he shall perform his duty as a brother-in-law with respect to her. And then the firstborn that she bears shall represent his dead brother,[d] so that his name is not blotted out from Israel. But if the man does not want to take his sister-in-law, then his sister-in-law shall go up to the gate, to the elders, and she shall say, ‘My brother-in-law refused to perpetuate his brother’s name[e] in Israel, for he is not willing to marry me.’[f] Then the elders of his town shall summon him and speak to him, and if he persists and says, ‘I do not desire to[g] marry her’ then his sister-in-law shall go near him before the eyes of the elders, and she shall pull off his sandal from his foot, and she shall spit in his face, and she shall declare[h] and she shall say, ‘This is how it is done to the man who does not build the house of his brother.’ 10 And his family[i] shall be called in Israel, ‘The house where the sandal was pulled off.’[j]

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Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 25:5 Others: “strange man,” “man outside the family” (NEB)
  2. Deuteronomy 25:5 Literally “shall go to her”
  3. Deuteronomy 25:5 Literally “to/for him”
  4. Deuteronomy 25:6 Literally “he shall stand upon the name of his brother the deceased”
  5. Deuteronomy 25:7 Literally “to cause a name to stand for his brother”
  6. Deuteronomy 25:7 Literally “to consummate the marriage with the widow of a his brother”
  7. Deuteronomy 25:8 Literally “I do not delight in”
  8. Deuteronomy 25:9 Literally “respond/answer”
  9. Deuteronomy 25:10 Literally “name”
  10. Deuteronomy 25:10 Or “the house of the man whose sandal was pulled off”