In the judicial process the new law lays emphasis on the rule that only the testimony of two or three witnesses is to be sufficient,[450] and that the testimony is to be strictly proved. The judges are to inquire, and "if the witness is a false witness, and has spoken falsely against his brother, ye shall do to him as he thought to do to his brother."[451] Like the old law, the new warns the judge to "have no respect of persons," and adds that he is to take no gift, that he is never to give crooked judgments; least of all, in the case of widows and orphans. "Cursed is he that perverteth the judgment of the fatherless and widow."[452] In the canons of law, as in the regulations about the tithes, the new code makes changes only with a view to the carrying out of the law in practice. It goes decidedly beyond the old in the regulations, instituted even in the old law, for the diminution of the severity of the law of debt, and in regard for the oppressed and poor (II. 221). The arrangements about the years of Sabbath and of Jubilee are dropped as impracticable in the new law, and are reduced to the much simpler rule, that in every seventh year, i.e. in the year of Sabbath, an "acquitment is to be made," i.e. every unpaid loan, made before this year, is to be cancelled, with the income upon it. Feeling the evil consequences which might spring from this regulation, the Book of the Law at the same time gives warning that no one is to be misled into refusing loans to the poor from the fear that he could not count on repayment after the year of acquitment.[453] The older law requires, as has been already remarked, that in lending to the poor no interest should be taken;[454] the new law went further: interest is not to be taken from any Israelite, but only from strangers (_i.e._ Phenician merchants).[455] But here also it is added, that no one for this reason "is to harden his heart, and close his hand before his poor brother; thou shalt lend to him on a pledge (_i.e._ on sufficient security), what is requisite for his need, and Jehovah will bless thee in all the work of thy hands."[456] Thus in Israel money was, in fact, only lent on pledge. The old law forbids to take the cloak of the poor in pledge;[457] the new law forbids the creditor, who demands his loan, to enter the house in order to choose a pledge for himself, and lays down the rule that the man who lends money is to wait outside till the debtor brings a pledge. The mill and the mill-stone (as indispensable to every household), and the garment of the widow, are not to be demanded.[458]