⁶ Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. ⁷ Now Er, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in the Lord’s sight, and the Lord put him to death.^{(A) 8} Then Judah said to Onan, “Sleep with your brother’s wife. Perform your duty as her brother-in-law^(B) and produce offspring for your brother.”^{(C) 9} But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his, so whenever he slept with his brother’s wife, he released his semen on the ground so that he would not produce offspring for his brother. ¹⁰ What he did was evil in the Lord’s sight, so he put him to death also.

¹¹ Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Remain a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up.”^(D) For he thought, “He might die too, like his brothers.” So Tamar went to live in her father’s house.

²³ “The land is not to be permanently sold because it is mine, and you are only aliens and temporary residents on my land.^{[a](A) 24} You are to allow the redemption of any land you occupy. ²⁵ If your brother becomes destitute and sells part of his property, his nearest relative may come and redeem what his brother has sold. ²⁶ If a man has no family redeemer, but he prospers^[b] and obtains enough to redeem his land, ²⁷ he may calculate the years since its sale, repay the balance to the man he sold it to, and return to his property. ²⁸ But if he cannot obtain enough to repay him, what he sold will remain in the possession of its purchaser until the Year of Jubilee. It is to be released at the Jubilee, so that he may return to his property.

²⁹ “If a man sells a residence in a walled city, his right of redemption will last until a year has passed after its sale; his right of redemption will last a year. ³⁰ If it is not redeemed by the end of a full year, then the house in the walled city is permanently transferred to its purchaser throughout his generations. It is not to be released on the Jubilee. ³¹ But houses in settlements that have no walls around them are to be classified as open fields. The right to redeem such houses stays in effect, and they are to be released at the Jubilee.

³² “Concerning the Levitical cities,^(B) the Levites always have the right to redeem houses in the cities they possess. ³³ Whatever property one of the Levites can redeem^[c]—a house sold in a city they possess—is to be released at the Jubilee, because the houses in the Levitical cities are their possession among the Israelites. ³⁴ The open pastureland around their cities may not be sold, for it is their permanent possession.

Preserving the Family Line

⁵ “When brothers live on the same property^[a] 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. ⁶ The first son she bears will carry on the name of the dead brother, so his name will not be blotted out from Israel.^{(A) 7} But if the man doesn’t want to marry his sister-in-law, she is to go to the elders at the city gate^(B) 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.’ ⁸ The elders of his city will summon him and speak with him. If he persists and says, ‘I don’t want to marry her,’ ⁹ 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.’ ¹⁰ And his family name in Israel will be ‘The house of the man whose sandal was removed.’^(C)