Deuteronomy 25

EasyEnglish Bible

25 When there is an argument between two people, they must both go to the judges. Then the judges will decide which of the two people is right. They will decide the punishment for the guilty person. ² The judge may decide that his officers should beat the guilty person as punishment. The judge will make him lie down on the ground. Then he will watch as his officers beat the guilty person. They will hit him as many times as he deserves because of his wicked act. ³ But they must not hit him more than 40 times as his punishment. If it is more than that, nobody would respect him any more.

⁴ Do not tie shut the mouth of your ox while it walks on your grain to prepare it for you.^[a]

⁵ Perhaps two brothers live together in the same place. One of the brothers may die before he has any son. If that happens, his widow must not marry anyone who does not belong to the family. Instead, the other brother must marry her. That is the right thing for him to do for his dead brother. ⁶ The first son that the widow gives birth to will be the son of her first husband. His family's name will not disappear from Israel.

⁷ But the man may not want to marry his brother's widow. If so, this is what the widow must do: She must go to the leaders when they meet at the town gate. She must say, ‘My dead husband's brother refuses to do his duty for me. He does not want his brother to have any descendants so that his family's name will continue.’

⁸ Then the town's leaders must call the man to come to them. They must talk to him. Perhaps he will continue to say, ‘I do not want to marry her!’

⁹ If that happens, his brother's widow must go near him, as the leaders watch. She must pull off one of his shoes and then she must spit in his face. She must say, ‘This is what we do to a man who will not give descendants to his dead brother!’ ¹⁰ After that, people will call that man's family, ‘the family of the man who lost his shoe.’

¹¹ Perhaps two men are fighting each other. The wife of one of them comes to help him. She tries to save him from his enemy who is attacking him. Perhaps she takes hold of the man's sex parts. ¹² If she does that, you must cut off her hand as punishment. Do not be sorry for her.

¹³ Do not try to cheat people when you weigh or measure things. Do not carry with you two different stone weights, one light one and one heavy one. ¹⁴ Do not keep in your house two different bowls to measure things, one big one and one small one. ¹⁵ You must keep true and honest weights. You must have bowls that measure things correctly. If you do that you will live for a long time in the land that the Lord your God is giving to you. ¹⁶ The Lord your God hates anyone who cheats other people and is not honest.

The Amalekites

¹⁷ Remember what the Amalekites did to you when you came out of Egypt.^{[b] 18} They attacked you when you were tired and weak. They killed all the people who were walking slowly at the back of your group. They were not afraid of God. ¹⁹ But the Lord your God will chase away all your enemies. He will give you a safe place to rest in the land that he is giving to you as your new home. When he does that, do not forget to destroy all the Amalekites. Make sure that nobody in the whole world will remember them any more.