A reading from the book of Deuteronomy.

If there is a dispute between men, and they come into court, and the judges decide between them,

acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty, then if the guilty man deserves to be beaten,

the judge shall cause him to lie down and be beaten in his presence, with a number of stripes

in proportion to his

offense. Forty stripes may be given him, but not more, lest if one should go on to beat him

with more stripes in these, your brother be degraded in your sight. You shall not muzzle an ox

when it is treading out the grain. 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 into her,

and take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her, 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. 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.

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,

then his brother's wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders

and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face.

And she shall answer and say,

so shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother's house.

And the name of his house shall be called in Israel,

the house of him who had his sandal pulled off.

...