English Standard Version

Deuteronomy 25:3-8 English Standard Version (ESV)

3. 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. “You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain.

5. “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 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.

6. And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.

7. And if the man does not wish to take his brother’s wife, then his brother’s wife shall 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.’

8. Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him, and if he persists, saying, ‘I do not wish to take her,’