Leviticus 25
25
The Sabbath Year
1While Moses was on Mount Sinai, the Lord said to him, 2“Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. When you have entered the land I am giving you, the land itself must observe a Sabbath rest before the Lord every seventh year. 3For six years you may plant your fields and prune your vineyards and harvest your crops, 4but during the seventh year the land must have a Sabbath year of complete rest. It is the Lord’s Sabbath. Do not plant your fields or prune your vineyards during that year. 5And don’t store away the crops that grow on their own or gather the grapes from your unpruned vines. The land must have a year of complete rest. 6But you may eat whatever the land produces on its own during its Sabbath. This applies to you, your male and female servants, your hired workers, and the temporary residents who live with you. 7Your livestock and the wild animals in your land will also be allowed to eat what the land produces.
The Year of Jubilee
8“In addition, you must count off seven Sabbath years, seven sets of seven years, adding up to forty-nine years in all. 9Then on the Day of Atonement in the fiftieth year,#25:9 Hebrew on the tenth day of the seventh month, on the Day of Atonement; see 23:27a and the note there. blow the ram’s horn loud and long throughout the land. 10Set this year apart as holy, a time to proclaim freedom throughout the land for all who live there. It will be a jubilee year for you, when each of you may return to the land that belonged to your ancestors and return to your own clan. 11This fiftieth year will be a jubilee for you. During that year you must not plant your fields or store away any of the crops that grow on their own, and don’t gather the grapes from your unpruned vines. 12It will be a jubilee year for you, and you must keep it holy. But you may eat whatever the land produces on its own. 13In the Year of Jubilee each of you may return to the land that belonged to your ancestors.
14“When you make an agreement with your neighbor to buy or sell property, you must not take advantage of each other. 15When you buy land from your neighbor, the price you pay must be based on the number of years since the last jubilee. The seller must set the price by taking into account the number of years remaining until the next Year of Jubilee. 16The more years until the next jubilee, the higher the price; the fewer years, the lower the price. After all, the person selling the land is actually selling you a certain number of harvests. 17Show your fear of God by not taking advantage of each other. I am the Lord your God.
18“If you want to live securely in the land, follow my decrees and obey my regulations. 19Then the land will yield large crops, and you will eat your fill and live securely in it. 20But you might ask, ‘What will we eat during the seventh year, since we are not allowed to plant or harvest crops that year?’ 21Be assured that I will send my blessing for you in the sixth year, so the land will produce a crop large enough for three years. 22When you plant your fields in the eighth year, you will still be eating from the large crop of the sixth year. In fact, you will still be eating from that large crop when the new crop is harvested in the ninth year.
Redemption of Property
23“The land must never be sold on a permanent basis, for the land belongs to me. You are only foreigners and tenant farmers working for me.
24“With every purchase of land you must grant the seller the right to buy it back. 25If one of your fellow Israelites falls into poverty and is forced to sell some family land, then a close relative should buy it back for him. 26If there is no close relative to buy the land, but the person who sold it gets enough money to buy it back, 27he then has the right to redeem it from the one who bought it. The price of the land will be discounted according to the number of years until the next Year of Jubilee. In this way the original owner can then return to the land. 28But if the original owner cannot afford to buy back the land, it will remain with the new owner until the next Year of Jubilee. In the jubilee year, the land must be returned to the original owners so they can return to their family land.
29“Anyone who sells a house inside a walled town has the right to buy it back for a full year after its sale. During that year, the seller retains the right to buy it back. 30But if it is not bought back within a year, the sale of the house within the walled town cannot be reversed. It will become the permanent property of the buyer. It will not be returned to the original owner in the Year of Jubilee. 31But a house in a village—a settlement without fortified walls—will be treated like property in the countryside. Such a house may be bought back at any time, and it must be returned to the original owner in the Year of Jubilee.
32“The Levites always have the right to buy back a house they have sold within the towns allotted to them. 33And any property that is sold by the Levites—all houses within the Levitical towns—must be returned in the Year of Jubilee. After all, the houses in the towns reserved for the Levites are the only property they own in all Israel. 34The open pastureland around the Levitical towns may never be sold. It is their permanent possession.
Redemption of the Poor and Enslaved
35“If one of your fellow Israelites falls into poverty and cannot support himself, support him as you would a foreigner or a temporary resident and allow him to live with you. 36Do not charge interest or make a profit at his expense. Instead, show your fear of God by letting him live with you as your relative. 37Remember, do not charge interest on money you lend him or make a profit on food you sell him. 38I 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.
39“If one of your fellow Israelites falls into poverty and is forced to sell himself to you, do not treat him as a slave. 40Treat him instead as a hired worker or as a temporary resident who lives with you, and he will serve you only until the Year of Jubilee. 41At that time he and his children will no longer be obligated to you, and they will return to their clans and go back to the land originally allotted to their ancestors. 42The people of Israel are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt, so they must never be sold as slaves. 43Show your fear of God by not treating them harshly.
44“However, you may purchase male and female slaves from among the nations around you. 45You may also purchase the children of temporary residents who live among you, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, 46passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat them as slaves, but you must never treat your fellow Israelites this way.
47“Suppose a foreigner or temporary resident becomes rich while living among you. If any of your fellow Israelites fall into poverty and are forced to sell themselves to such a foreigner or to a member of his family, 48they still retain the right to be bought back, even after they have been purchased. They may be bought back by a brother, 49an uncle, or a cousin. In fact, anyone from the extended family may buy them back. They may also redeem themselves if they have prospered. 50They will negotiate the price of their freedom with the person who bought them. The price will be based on the number of years from the time they were sold until the next Year of Jubilee—whatever it would cost to hire a worker for that period of time. 51If many years still remain until the jubilee, they will repay the proper proportion of what they received when they sold themselves. 52If only a few years remain until the Year of Jubilee, they will repay a small amount for their redemption. 53The foreigner must treat them as workers hired on a yearly basis. You must not allow a foreigner to treat any of your fellow Israelites harshly. 54If any Israelites have not been bought back by the time the Year of Jubilee arrives, they and their children must be set free at that time. 55For the people of Israel belong to me. They are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.
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Leviticus 25: NLT
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Leviticus 25
25
1And Jehovah speaketh unto Moses, in mount Sinai, saying,
2‘Speak unto the sons of Israel, and thou hast said unto them, When ye come in unto the land which I am giving to you, then hath the land kept a sabbath to Jehovah.
3‘Six years thou dost sow thy field, and six years thou dost prune thy vineyard, and hast gathered its increase,
4and in the seventh year a sabbath of rest is to the land, a sabbath to Jehovah; thy field thou dost not sow, and thy vineyard thou dost not prune;
5the spontaneous growth of thy harvest thou dost not reap, and the grapes of thy separated thing thou dost not gather, a year of rest it is to the land.
6‘And the sabbath of the land hath been to you for food, to thee, and to thy manservant, and to thy handmaid, and to thy hireling, and to thy settler, who are sojourning with thee;
7and to thy cattle, and to the beast which [is] in thy land, is all thine increase for food.
8‘And thou hast numbered to thee seven sabbaths of years, seven years seven times, and the days of the seven sabbaths of years have been to thee nine and forty years,
9and thou hast caused a trumpet of shouting to pass over in the seventh month, in the tenth of the month; in the day of the atonements ye do cause a trumpet to pass over through all your land;
10and ye have hallowed the year, the fiftieth year; and ye have proclaimed liberty in the land to all its inhabitants; a jubilee it is to you; and ye have turned back each unto his possession; yea, each unto his family ye do turn back.
11‘A jubilee it [is], the fiftieth year, a year it is to you; ye sow not, nor reap its spontaneous growth, nor gather its separated things;
12for a jubilee it [is], holy it is to you; out of the field ye eat its increase;
13in the year of this jubilee ye turn back each unto his possession.
14‘And when thou sellest anything to thy fellow, or buyest from the hand of thy fellow, ye do not oppress one another;
15by the number of years after the jubilee thou dost buy from thy fellow; by the number of the years of increase he doth sell to thee;
16according to the multitude of the years thou dost multiply its price, and according to the fewness of the years thou dost diminish its price; for a number of increases he is selling to thee;
17and ye do not oppress one another, and thou hast been afraid of thy God; for I [am] Jehovah your God.
18‘And ye have done My statutes, and My judgments ye keep, and have done them, and ye have dwelt on the land confidently,
19and the land hath given its fruit, and ye have eaten to satiety, and have dwelt confidently on it.
20‘And when ye say, What do we eat in the seventh year, lo, we do not sow, nor gather our increase?
21then I have commanded My blessing on you in the sixth year, and it hath made the increase for three years;
22and ye have sown the eighth year, and have eaten of the old increase; until the ninth year, until the coming in of its increase, ye do eat the old.
23‘And the land is not sold — to extinction, for the land [is] Mine, for sojourners and settlers [are] ye with Me;
24and in all the land of your possession a redemption ye do give to the land.
25‘When thy brother becometh poor, and hath sold his possession, then hath his redeemer who is near unto him come, and he hath redeemed the sold thing of his brother;
26and when a man hath no redeemer, and his own hand hath attained, and he hath found as sufficient [for] its redemption,
27then he hath reckoned the years of its sale, and hath given back that which is over to the man to whom he sold [it], and he hath returned to his possession.
28‘And if his hand hath not found sufficiency to give back to him, then hath his sold thing been in the hand of him who buyeth it till the year of jubilee; and it hath gone out in the jubilee, and he hath returned to his possession.
29‘And when a man selleth a dwelling-house [in] a walled city, then hath his right of redemption been until the completion of a year from its selling; days — is his right of redemption;
30and if it is not redeemed until the fulness to him of a perfect year, then hath the house which [is] in a walled city been established to extinction to the buyer of it, to his generations; it goeth not out in the jubilee;
31and a house of the villages which have no wall round about, on the field of the country is reckoned; redemption is to it, and in the jubilee it goeth out.
32‘As to cities of the Levites — houses of the cities of their possession — redemption age-during is to the Levites;
33as to him who redeemeth from the Levites, both the sale of a house and the city of his possession have gone out in the jubilee, for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession in the midst of the sons of Israel.
34And a field, a suburb of their cities, is not sold; for a possession age-during it [is] to them.
35‘And when thy brother is become poor, and his hand hath failed with thee, then thou hast kept hold on him, sojourner and settler, and he hath lived with thee;
36thou takest no usury from him, or increase; and thou hast been afraid of thy God; and thy brother hath lived with thee;
37thy money thou givest not to him in usury, and for increase thou givest not thy food;
38I [am] Jehovah your God, who hath brought you out of the land of Egypt, to give to you the land of Canaan, to become your God.
39‘And when thy brother becometh poor with thee, and he hath been sold to thee, thou dost not lay on him servile service;
40as an hireling, as a settler, he is with thee, till the year of the jubilee he doth serve with thee, —
41then he hath gone out from thee, he and his sons with him, and hath turned back unto his family; even unto the possession of his fathers he doth turn back.
42‘For they [are] My servants, whom I have brought out from the land of Egypt: they are not sold [with] the sale of a servant;
43thou rulest not over him with rigour, and thou hast been afraid of thy God.
44‘And thy man-servant and thy handmaid whom thou hast [are] of the nations who [are] round about you; of them ye buy man-servant and handmaid,
45and also of the sons of the settlers who are sojourning with you, of them ye buy, and of their families who [are] with you, which they have begotten in your land, and they have been to you for a possession;
46and ye have taken them for inheritance to your sons after you, to occupy [for] a possession; to the age ye lay service upon them, but upon your brethren, the sons of Israel, one with another, thou dost not rule over him with rigour.
47‘And when the hand of a sojourner or settler with thee attaineth [riches], and thy brother with him hath become poor, and he hath been sold to a sojourner, a settler with thee, or to the root of the family of a sojourner,
48after he hath been sold, there is a right of redemption to him; one of his brethren doth redeem him,
49or his uncle, or a son of his uncle, doth redeem him, or any of the relations of his flesh, of his family, doth redeem him, or — his own hand hath attained — then he hath been redeemed.
50‘And he hath reckoned with his buyer from the year of his being sold to him till the year of jubilee, and the money of his sale hath been by the number of years; as the days of an hireling it is with him.
51‘If yet many years, according to them he giveth back his redemption [money], from the money of his purchase.
52‘And if few are left of the years till the year of jubilee, then he hath reckoned with him, according to his years he doth give back his redemption [money];
53as an hireling, year by year, he is with him, and he doth not rule him with rigour before thine eyes.
54‘And if he is not redeemed in these [years], then he hath gone out in the year of jubilee, he and his sons with him.
55For to Me [are] the sons of Israel servants; My servants they [are], whom I have brought out of the land of Egypt; I, Jehovah, [am] your God.
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