But if the man doesn’t want to marry his sister-in-law, she must go to the elders at the city gate and say, ‘My brother-in-law refuses to preserve his brother’s name in Israel. He isn’t willing to perform the duty of a brother-in-law for me.’

“Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaves his wife behind, and leaves no child, his brother should take the wife and produce offspring for his brother.

“Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother has a wife, and dies childless, his brother should take the wife and produce offspring for his brother.

They answered, “The man kept asking about us and our family: ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ And we answered him accordingly. How could we know that he would say, ‘Bring your brother here’?”

We told him, ‘We cannot go down unless our younger brother goes with us. So if our younger brother isn’t with us, we cannot see the man.’

If a man marries his brother’s wife, it is impurity. He has shamed his brother; they will be childless.

“When brothers live on the same property and one of them dies without a son, the wife of the dead man may not marry a stranger outside the family. Her brother-in-law is to take her as his wife, have sexual relations with her, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law for her.

“Teacher, Moses said, if a man dies, having no children, his brother is to marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.

I will require the life of every animal and every man for your life and your blood. I will require the life of each man’s brother for a man’s life.

Jacob answered Rebekah his mother, “Look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, but I am a man with smooth skin.

Now Rebekah had a brother named Laban, and Laban ran out to the man at the spring.

The man who is the lord of the country said to us, ‘This is how I will know if you are honest: Leave one brother with me, take food to relieve the hunger of your households, and go.

But Judah said to him, “The man specifically warned us: ‘You will not see me again unless your brother is with you.’

But if you will not send him, we will not go, for the man said to us, ‘You will not see me again unless your brother is with you.’”

“Why did you cause me so much trouble?” Israel asked. “Why did you tell the man that you had another brother?”

Take your brother also, and go back at once to the man.

May God Almighty cause the man to be merciful to you so that he will release your other brother and Benjamin to you. As for me, if I am deprived of my sons, then I am deprived.”

He told them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘Every man fasten his sword to his side; go back and forth through the camp from entrance to entrance, and each of you kill his brother, his friend, and his neighbor.’”

Afterward Moses said, “Today you have been dedicated to the Lord, since each man went against his son and his brother. Therefore you have brought a blessing on yourselves today.”

I commanded your judges at that time: Hear the cases between your brothers, and judge rightly between a man and his brother or a foreign resident.

then his sister-in-law will go up to him in the sight of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, and spit in his face. Then she will declare, ‘This is what is done to a man who will not build up his brother’s house.’

The most sensitive and refined man among you will look grudgingly at his brother, the wife he embraces, and the rest of his children,

Amnon had a friend named Jonadab, a son of David’s brother Shimeah. Jonadab was a very shrewd man,

Then I put my brother Hanani in charge of Jerusalem, along with Hananiah, commander of the fortress, because he was a faithful man who feared God more than most.

A man with many friends may be harmed,
but there is a friend who stays closer than a brother.

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A man will even seize his brother
in his father’s house, saying:
“You have a cloak—you be our leader!
This heap of rubble will be under your control.”

This is what each man is to say to his friend and to his brother, ‘What has the Lord answered?’ or ‘What has the Lord spoken?’

so each man would free his male and female Hebrew slaves and no one would enslave his Judean brother.

“Therefore, this is what the Lord says: You have not obeyed Me by proclaiming freedom, each man for his brother and for his neighbor. I hereby proclaim freedom for you”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“to the sword, to plague, and to famine! I will make you a horror to all the earth’s kingdoms.

“Now, son of man, your people are talking about you near the city walls and in the doorways of their houses. One person speaks to another, each saying to his brother, ‘Come and hear what the message is that comes from the Lord!’

I will call for a sword against him on all My mountains”—the declaration of the Lord God—“and every man’s sword will be against his brother.