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
The Sabbath Year
1Then the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying: 2#Ex 23:10; Lev 26:34–35Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a sabbath to the Lord. 3For six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruit, 4but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for the land, a sabbath for the Lord. You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard. 5#2Ki 19:29; Isa 37:30That which grows by itself from your harvest you shall not reap, nor gather the grapes of your unpruned vines, for it is a year of complete rest for the land. 6The sabbath produce of the land shall be food for you: for you, and for your male and female servants, and for your hired servant, and for your stranger who sojourns with you, 7and for your livestock, and for the wild animals in your land, shall all its increase be food.
The Year of Jubilee
Dt 15:1–11; Ex 21:2–11; Dt 15:12–18
8#Lev 23:15You shall count seven sabbath weeks of years, seven times seven years, and the time of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. 9#Lev 23:24; 23:27Then you shall sound the horn blasts on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall make the sound of the horn throughout all your land. 10#Jer 34:8; Ex 20:2You shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all the inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee to you, and each of you shall return to his possession, and every person shall return to his family. 11That fiftieth year will be a Jubilee for you. You shall neither sow nor reap that which grows by itself, nor gather the grapes of your unpruned vines. 12#Lev 25:6–7For it is the Jubilee. It shall be holy to you. You shall eat the produce of the field.
13#Lev 25:10In the Year of Jubilee you shall return to your property.
14#Lev 19:13; 25:17If you sell anything to your neighbor or buy anything from your neighbor, you shall not oppress one another. 15According to the number of years after the Jubilee you shall pay your neighbor, and according to the number of years of the crops he shall sell to you. 16According to the increase of years you shall increase the price, and according to the decrease of years you shall diminish the price of it. For he shall sell to you according to the number of years of crops. 17#Lev 19:14; 19:32You shall not therefore oppress one another, but you shall fear your God. For I am the Lord your God.
18#Dt 12:10; Jer 23:6Therefore you shall do My statutes, and keep My decrees, and do them, and you shall dwell securely in the land. 19#Lev 26:5; Ps 85:12The land shall yield its fruit, and you shall eat your fill and live securely in it. 20#Lev 25:4; Lk 12:29If you shall say, “What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we shall not sow nor gather in our crop?” 21#Dt 28:8then I will command My blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth produce for three years. 22#Lev 26:10; 2Ki 19:29You shall sow in the eighth year, and eat yet of old crops until the ninth year until its crops come in for you.
Redemption of Property
23#1Ch 29:15; Ps 39:12The land shall not be permanently sold, for the land is Mine. For you are foreigners and sojourners with Me. 24In all the land of your possession you shall grant a redemption for the land.
25#Ru 2:20; 3:9If your brother becomes poor and has sold some of his possession, then his nearest redeemer will come to redeem it, and buy back that which his brother sold. 26If the man has none to redeem it, but he himself is able to redeem it, 27then let him count the years since the sale and pay back the balance to the man to whom he sold it, so that he may return to his property. 28But if he is not able to restore it to himself, then that which he sold shall remain in the hand of him who has bought it until the Year of Jubilee, and in the Jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his possession.
29If a man sells a house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a year after it is sold, within a full year he may have the right to buy it back. 30If it is not redeemed within the time of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be given permanently to him who bought it throughout his generations. It shall not be returned in the Jubilee. 31But the houses of the villages that have no wall around them shall be counted as the fields of the land. They may be redeemed, and they shall be returned in the Jubilee.
32For the cities of the Levites, they may redeem at any time the houses in the cities that they possess. 33If a Levite purchases back the house that was sold in the city of his possession, then it shall be returned in the Jubilee. For the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel. 34#Lev 25:23; Ac 4:36–37But the fields of the land of their cities may not be sold, for they are their perpetual possession.
Helping the Poor
35#Dt 15:7–8; Ps 37:26If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, then you shall support him as if he were a foreigner or a sojourner, so that he may live with you. 36#Ex 22:25; Dt 23:19–20Take no usury or interest from him; but fear your God, so that your brother may live with you. 37You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor lend him your food for profit. 38#Lev 11:45; 22:32–33I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.
The Law About Slavery
39#Ex 21:2; 1Ki 9:22; Lev 25:46If your brother who dwells near you becomes poor and sells himself to you, you shall not compel him to serve as a bondservant. 40But as a hired servant and as a sojourner he shall be with you. He shall serve you until the Year of Jubilee. 41#Lev 25:28; Ex 21:3And then he shall depart from you, both he and his children with him, and he shall return to his own family and to the possession of his fathers. 42#Lev 25:55; Ro 6:22For they are My servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. They shall not be sold as slaves. 43#Col 4:1; Ex 1:13–14You shall not rule over him with harshness, but you shall fear your God.
44Both your male and female slaves, whom you may have, they shall be bought from the nations that are around you. 45Moreover of the foreigners who sojourn among you and of their families who are with you, who were born in your land, you may also buy from them, and they may be your possession. 46You may take them as an inheritance for your children after you, for their possession. They shall be your slaves forever. But over your brothers, the children of Israel, you shall not rule over one another with rigor.
47If a sojourner or foreigner becomes rich by you, and your brother who dwells beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the foreigner or sojourner with you, or to a member of the stranger’s family, 48#Ne 5:5then after he is sold he may be redeemed again. One of his brothers may redeem him, 49#Lev 25:26or either his uncle or his cousin may redeem him, or any who is near of kin to him of his family may redeem him. Or if he is able, he may redeem himself. 50#Isa 16:14; 21:16He shall calculate with him who bought him from the year that he was sold to the Year of Jubilee, and the price of his sale shall be according to the number of years, according to the time of a hired servant. 51If there are still many years left until the Jubilee, he shall pay the price proportionately for his redemption as some of the price that he was bought for. 52If there remain but a few years until the Year of Jubilee, then he shall calculate and pay the price proportionately for his redemption according to his years of service. 53As a yearly hired servant he shall be treated, and the other shall not rule harshly over him in your sight.
54#Ex 21:2–3If he is not redeemed in these years, then he shall go out in the Year of Jubilee, both he and his children with him. 55#Lev 25:42For to Me the children of Israel are servants. They are My servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
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