1 “If people have a dispute, seek its resolution in court, and the judges render a decision in favor of the righteous one and condemning the wicked one;
2 then, if the wicked one deserves to be flogged, the judge is to have him lie down and be flogged in his presence. The number of strokes is to be proportionate to his offense;
3 but the maximum number is forty. He is not to exceed this; if he goes over this limit and beats him more than this, your brother will be humiliated before your eyes.
4 “You are not to muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain.
5 “If brothers live together, and one of them dies childless, his widow is not to marry someone unrelated to him; her husband’s brother is to go to her and perform the duty of a brother-in-law by marrying her.
6 The first child she bears will succeed to the name of his dead brother, so that his name will not be eliminated from Isra’el.
7 If the man does not wish to marry his brother’s widow, then his brother’s widow is to go up to the gate, to the leaders, and say, ‘My brother-in-law refuses to raise up for his brother a name in Isra’el; he will not perform the duty of a husband’s brother for me.’
8 The leaders of his town are to summon him and speak to him. If, on appearing before them, he continues to say, ‘I don’t want to marry her,’
9 then his brother’s widow is to approach him in the presence of the leaders, pull his sandal off his foot, spit in his face and say, ‘This is what is done to the man who refuses to build up his brother’s family.’
10 From that time on, his family is to be known in Isra’el as ‘the family of the man who had his sandal pulled off.’
11 “If men are fighting with each other, and the wife of one comes up to help her husband get away from the man attacking him by grabbing the attacker’s private parts with her hand,
12 you are to cut off her hand; show no pity.
13 “You are not to have in your pack two sets of weights, one heavy, the other light.
14 You are not to have in your house two sets of measures, one big, the other small.
15 You are to have a correct and fair weight, and you are to have a correct and fair measure, so that you will prolong your days in the landAdonaiyour God is giving you.
16 For all who do such things, all who deal dishonestly, are destestable toAdonaiyour God.
(Maftir)
17 “Remember what ‘Amalek did to you on the road as you were coming out of Egypt,
18 how he met you by the road, attacked those in the rear, those who were exhausted and straggling behind when you were tired and weary. He did not fear God.
19 Therefore, whenAdonaiyour God has given you rest from all your surrounding enemies in the landAdonaiyour God is giving you as your inheritance to possess, you are to blot out all memory of ‘Amalek from under heaven. Don’t forget!
Haftarah Ki Tetze: Yesha‘yahu (Isaiah) 54:1–10 [Messianic adaptation: commence the reading at 52:13]
B’rit Hadashah suggested readings for Parashah Ki Tetze: Mattityahu (Matthew) 5:31–32; 19:3–12; 22:23–32; Mark 10:2–12; 12:18–27; Luke 20:27–38; 1 Corinthians 9:4–18; Galatians 3:9–14; 1 Timothy 5:17–18