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Deuteronomy 25
1If there is a controversy between men, and they come to judgment and the judges judge them, then they shall the and condemn the wicked.
2It shall be, if the wicked man is worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down and to be beaten before his face, according to his wickedness, by number.
3He may sentence him to no more than forty stripes. He shall not give more, lest if he should give more and beat him more than that many stripes, then your brother will be degraded in your sight.
4You shall not muzzle the ox when he treads out the grain.
5If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead shall not be married outside 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.
6It shall be that the firstborn whom she bears shall succeed in the name of his brother who is dead, that his name not be blotted out of Israel.
7If the man doesn’t want 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 raise up to his brother a 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. If he stands and says, “I don’t want to take her,”
9then his brother’s wife shall come to him in the presence of the elders, and loose his sandal from off his foot, and spit in his face. She shall answer and say, “So shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house.”
10His name shall be called in Israel, “The house of him who had his sandal removed.”
11When men strive against each other, and the wife of one draws near to deliver her husband out of the hand of him who strikes him, and puts out her hand, and grabs him by his private parts,
12then you shall cut off her hand. Your eye shall have no pity.
13You shall not have in your bag diverse weights, one heavy and one light.
14You shall not have in your house diverse measures, one large and one small.
15You shall have a perfect and just weight. You shall have a perfect and just measure, that your days may be long in the land which the LORD your God gives you.
16For all who do such things, all who do unrighteously, are an abomination to the LORD your God.
17Remember what Amalek did to you by the way as you came out of Egypt,
18how he met you by the way, and struck the rearmost of you, all who were feeble behind you, when you were faint and weary; and he didn’t fear God.
19Therefore it shall be, when the LORD your God has given you rest from all your enemies all around, in the land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance to possess it, that you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under the sky. You shall not forget.
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Questions this passage answers
Who is God?
God is the one living Creator who made everything and depends on nothing, and Scripture answers this question mainly by telling us his character rather than by defining his substance. When God described himself to Moses he said he is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abundant in loving kindness and truth, and yet will by no means clear the guilty. The New Testament adds that this God is finally known in Jesus Christ, who has made him known.
What does it mean to fear the Lord?
The fear of the LORD is not terror of an unpredictable God. It is the reverence of a creature who has rightly understood who God is, holy, sovereign and near, and who therefore takes him seriously in every decision. Proverbs calls it the beginning of knowledge, because a person who has not reckoned with God has not yet begun to understand anything rightly.