Not always will the judges be content, in settling a dispute, with giving the rightful claimant his due, and dismissing the other;

it may be this other deserves a beating. If so, they will have him laid on the ground and beaten in their presence, and his punishment will be greater or less according to his guilt;

provided always that the number of lashes must not exceed forty. Wouldst thou see thy brother go away all mangled?

Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treads out the corn on thy threshing-floor.

When two brethren share the same house, and one dies childless, his widow must not take a husband elsewhere; the survivor must wed her, and beget children in his dead brother’s name.

And the first son she bears him he must account as the dead man’s heir, so that his line shall not be lost to Israel.

It may be he will refuse to take his brother’s wife, although the law binds her to him. Then the woman will make her way to the city gate, and protest to the elders there, This brother-in-law of mine refuses to wed me and beget children in his brother’s name.

Thereupon they will summon and question him, and if he persists in refusing to take her,

the woman will go up to him, there in the presence of the elders, and take off one of his shoes, and spit in his face. This, she will say, is for the man who would not continue his brother’s line,

and Barefoot Breed is the name by which he will be known in Israel.✻

If two men fall out and come to blows, it may be that the wife of the weaker man will come up to his rescue, and lay hands upon the other, taking shameful hold of him.

That hand of hers must be struck off, and no mercy be shewn to her.

Thou shalt not carry two different weights in thy wallet, one heavy and one light,

or keep two bushel-measures in thy house, one great and one small.

A just weight and a true, a full bushel-measure and a true thou shalt use always, if thou wouldst have long enjoyment of the land the Lord thy God means to give thee.

All such knavery is hateful to the Lord thy God; he is the enemy of wrong-doing.

Do not forget how Amalec treated thee on thy way here from Egypt.

Reckless of the divine vengeance, he crossed thy path and cut off the stragglers from thy ranks, as they halted for weariness, faint with hunger and toil.

When the Lord thy God allows thee to rest secure, master of all the nations that dwell in the land he has promised thee, thou shalt blot out Amalec from human remembrance; keep this in mind constantly.