Leviticus 25
25
The Time of Rest for the Land
1The Lord said to Moses at Mount Sinai, 2“Tell the people of Israel this: ‘When you enter the land I will give you, let it have a special time of rest, to honor the Lord. 3You may plant seed in your field for six years, and you may trim your vineyards for six years and bring in their fruits. 4But during the seventh year, you must let the land rest. This will be a special time to honor the Lord. You must not plant seed in your field or trim your vineyards. 5You must not cut the crops that grow by themselves after harvest, or gather the grapes from your vines that are not trimmed. The land will have a year of rest.
6“ ‘You may eat whatever the land produces during that year of rest. It will be food for your men and women servants, for your hired workers, and for the foreigners living in your country. 7It will also be food for your cattle and the wild animals of your land. Whatever the land produces may be eaten.
The Year of Jubilee
8“ ‘Count off seven groups of seven years, or forty-nine years. During that time there will be seven years of rest for the land. 9On the Day of Cleansing, you must blow the horn of a male sheep; this will be on the tenth day of the seventh month. You must blow the horn through the whole country. 10Make the fiftieth year a special year, and announce freedom for all the people living in your country. This time will be called Jubilee. You will each go back to your own property, each to your own family and family group. 11The fiftieth year will be a special time for you to celebrate. Don’t plant seeds, or harvest the crops that grow by themselves, or gather grapes from the vines that are not trimmed. 12That year is Jubilee; it will be a holy time for you. You may eat only the crops that come from the field. 13In the year of Jubilee you each must go back to your own property.
14“ ‘If you sell your land to your neighbor, or if you buy land from your neighbor, don’t cheat each other. 15If you want to buy your neighbor’s land, count the number of years since the last Jubilee, and use that number to decide the right price. If your neighbor sells the land to you, count the number of years left for harvesting crops, and use that number to decide the right price. 16If there are many years, the price will be high. But if there are only a few years, lower the price, because your neighbor is really selling only a few crops to you. 17You must not cheat each other, but you must respect your God. I am the Lord your God.
18“ ‘Remember my laws and rules, and obey them so that you will live safely in the land. 19The land will give good crops to you, and you will eat as much as you want and live safely in the land.
20“ ‘But you might ask, “If we don’t plant seeds or gather crops, what will we eat the seventh year?” 21I will send you such a great blessing during the sixth year that the land will produce enough crops for three years. 22When you plant in the eighth year, you will still be eating from the old crop; you will eat the old crop until the harvest of the ninth year.
Property Laws
23“ ‘The land really belongs to me, so you can’t sell it for all time. You are only foreigners and travelers living for a while on my land. 24People might sell their land, but it must always be possible for the family to get its land back. 25If a person in your country becomes very poor and sells some land, then close relatives must come and buy it back. 26If there is not a close relative to buy the land back, but if the person makes enough money to be able to buy it back, 27the years must be counted since the land was sold. That number must be used to decide how much the first owner should pay back the one who bought it. Then the land will belong to the first owner again. 28But if there is not enough money to buy it back, the one who bought it will keep it until the year of Jubilee. During that celebration, the land will go back to the first owner’s family.
29“ ‘If someone sells a home in a walled city, for a full year after it is sold, the person has the right to buy it back. 30But if the owner does not buy back the house before a full year is over, it will belong to the one who bought it and to his future sons. The house will not go back to the first owner at Jubilee. 31But houses in small towns without walls are like open country; they can be bought back, and they must be returned to their first owner at Jubilee.
32“ ‘The Levites may always buy back their houses in the cities that belong to them. 33If someone buys a house from a Levite, that house in the Levites’ city will again belong to the Levites in the Jubilee. This is because houses in Levite cities belong to the people of Levi; the Israelites gave these cities to them. 34Also the fields and pastures around the Levites’ cities cannot be sold, because those fields belong to the Levites forever.
Rules for Slave Owners
35“ ‘If anyone from your country becomes too poor to support himself, help him to live among you as you would a stranger or foreigner. 36Do not charge him any interest on money you loan to him, but respect your God; let the poor live among you. 37Don’t lend him money for interest, and don’t try to make a profit from the food he buys. 38I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give the land of Canaan to you and to become your God.
39“ ‘If anyone from your country becomes very poor and sells himself as a slave to you, you must not make him work like a slave. 40He will be like a hired worker and a visitor with you until the year of Jubilee. 41Then he may leave you, take his children, and go back to his family and the land of his ancestors. 42This is because the Israelites are my servants, and I brought them out of slavery in Egypt. They must not become slaves again. 43You must not rule this person cruelly, but you must respect your God.
44“ ‘Your men and women slaves must come from other nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45Also you may buy as slaves children from the families of foreigners living in your land. These child slaves will belong to you, 46and you may even pass them on to your children after you die; you can make them slaves forever. But you must not rule cruelly over your own people, the Israelites.
47“ ‘Suppose a foreigner or visitor among you becomes rich. If someone in your country becomes so poor that he has to sell himself as a slave to the foreigner living among you or to a member of the foreigner’s family, 48the poor person has the right to be bought back and become free. One of his relatives may buy him back: 49His uncle, his uncle’s son, or any one of his close relatives may buy him back. Or, if he gets enough money, he may pay the money to free himself.
50“ ‘He and the one who bought him must count the time from when he sold himself up to the next year of Jubilee. Use that number to decide the price, because the person really only hired himself out for a certain number of years. 51If there are still many years before the year of Jubilee, the person must pay back a large part of the price. 52If there are only a few years left until Jubilee, the person must pay a small part of the first price. 53But he will live like a hired person with the foreigner every year; don’t let the foreigner rule cruelly over him.
54“ ‘Even if no one buys him back, at the year of Jubilee, he and his children will become free. 55This is because the people of Israel are servants to me. They are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.
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Leviticus 25: NCV
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The Holy Bible, New Century Version, Copyright © 2005 Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.
Leviticus 25
25
Sabbath Years and the Year of Jubilee
1 #
Exod 23.10,11. And the Lord spake unto Moses in mount Si´nai, saying, 2Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the Lord. 3Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; 4but in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the Lord: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. 5That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land. 6And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee, 7and for thy cattle, and for the beast that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be meat.
8And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. 9Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. 10And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. 11A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed. 12For it is the jubilee; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field.
13In the year of this jubilee ye shall return every man unto his possession. 14And if thou sell aught unto thy neighbor, or buyest aught of thy neighbor's hand, ye shall not oppress one another: 15according to the number of years after the jubilee thou shalt buy of thy neighbor, and according unto the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee: 16according to the multitude of years thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of years thou shalt diminish the price of it: for according to the number of the years of the fruits doth he sell unto thee. 17Ye shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy God: for I am the Lord your God.
18Wherefore ye shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety. 19And the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety. 20And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase: 21then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years. 22And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year; until her fruits come in ye shall eat of the old store. 23The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me. 24And in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land.
25If thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold. 26And if the man have none to redeem it, and himself be able to redeem it; 27then let him count the years of the sale thereof, and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold it; that he may return unto his possession. 28But if he be not able to restore it to him, then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of him that hath bought it until the year of jubilee: and in the jubilee it shall go out, and he shall return unto his possession.
29And if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; within a full year may he redeem it. 30And if it be not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be established for ever to him that bought it throughout his generations: it shall not go out in the jubilee. 31But the houses of the villages which have no wall round about them shall be counted as the fields of the country: they may be redeemed, and they shall go out in the jubilee. 32Notwithstanding the cities of the Levites, and the houses of the cities of their possession, may the Levites redeem at any time. 33And if a man purchase of the Levites, then the house that was sold, and the city of his possession, shall go out in the year of jubilee: for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel. 34But the field of the suburbs of their cities may not be sold; for it is their perpetual possession.
35 #
Deut 15.7,8. And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. 36Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee. 37#Exod 22.25; Deut 23.19,20. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase. 38I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.
39 #
Exod 21.2-6; Deut 15.12-18. And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee; thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant: 40but as a hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee: 41and then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return. 42For they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen. 43Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor; but shalt fear thy God. 44Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. 45Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession. 46And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigor.
47And if a sojourner or stranger wax rich by thee, and thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor, and sell himself unto the stranger or sojourner by thee, or to the stock of the stranger's family: 48after that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him: 49either his uncle, or his uncle's son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he be able, he may redeem himself. 50And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold to him unto the year of jubilee: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years, according to the time of a hired servant shall it be with him. 51If there be yet many years behind, according unto them he shall give again the price of his redemption out of the money that he was bought for. 52And if there remain but few years unto the year of jubilee, then he shall count with him, and according unto his years shall he give him again the price of his redemption. 53And as a yearly hired servant shall he be with him: and the other shall not rule with rigor over him in thy sight. 54And if he be not redeemed in these years, then he shall go out in the year of jubilee, both he, and his children with him. 55For unto me the children of Israel are servants; they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
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King James Version 1611, spelling, punctuation and text formatting modernized by ABS in 1962; typesetting © 2010 American Bible Society.