Leviticus 25
25
The Seventh Year
(Deut 15.1–11)
1 #
Ex 23.10–11
The LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai and commanded him 2to give the following regulations to the people of Israel. When you enter the land that the LORD is giving you, you shall honour the LORD by not cultivating the land every seventh year. 3You shall sow your fields, prune your vineyards, and gather your crops for six years. 4But the seventh year is to be a year of complete rest for the land, a year dedicated to the LORD. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. 5Do not even harvest the corn that grows by itself without being sown, and do not gather the grapes from your unpruned vines; it is a year of complete rest for the land. 6Although the land has not been cultivated during that year, it will provide food for you, your slaves, your hired men, the foreigners living with you, 7your domestic animals, and the wild animals in your fields. Everything that it produces may be eaten.
The Year of Restoration
8Count seven times seven years, a total of 49 years. 9Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement, send someone to blow a trumpet throughout the whole land. 10In this way you shall set the fiftieth year apart and proclaim freedom to all the inhabitants of the land. During this year all property that has been sold shall be restored to the original owner or his descendants, and anyone who has been sold as a slave shall return to his family. 11You shall not sow your fields or harvest the corn that grows by itself or gather the grapes in your unpruned vineyards. 12The whole year shall be sacred for you; you shall eat only what the fields produce of themselves.
13In this year all property that has been sold shall be restored to its original owner. 14So when you sell land to your fellow-Israelite or buy land from him, do not deal unfairly. 15The price is to be fixed according to the number of years the land can produce crops before the next Year of Restoration. 16If there are many years, the price shall be higher, but if there are only a few years, the price shall be lower, because what is being sold is the number of crops the land can produce. 17Do not cheat a fellow-Israelite, but obey the LORD your God.
The Problem of the Seventh Year
18Obey all the LORD's laws and commands, so that you may live in safety in the land. 19The land will produce its crops, and you will have all you want to eat and will live in safety.
20But someone may ask what there will be to eat during the seventh year, when no fields are sown and no crops gathered. 21The LORD will bless the land in the sixth year so that it will produce enough food for two years. 22When you sow your fields in the eighth year, you will still be eating what you harvested during the sixth year, and you will have enough to eat until the crops you plant that year are harvested.
Restoration of Property
23Your land must not be sold on a permanent basis, because you do not own it; it belongs to God, and you are like foreigners who are allowed to make use of it.
24When land is sold, the right of the original owner to buy it back must be recognized. 25If an Israelite becomes poor and is forced to sell his land, his closest relative is to buy it back. 26Anyone who has no relative to buy it back may later become prosperous and have enough to buy it back. 27In that case he must pay to the man who bought it a sum that will make up for the years remaining until the next Year of Restoration, when he would in any event recover his land. 28But if he does not have enough money to buy the land back, it remains under the control of the man who bought it until the next Year of Restoration. In that year it will be returned to its original owner.
29If someone sells a house in a walled city, he has the right to buy it back during the first full year from the date of sale. 30But if he does not buy it back within the year, he loses the right of repurchase, and the house becomes the permanent property of the purchaser and his descendants; it will not be returned in the Year of Restoration. 31But houses in unwalled villages are to be treated like fields; the original owner has the right to buy them back, and they are to be returned in the Year of Restoration. 32However, Levites have the right to buy back at any time their property in the cities assigned to them. 33If a house in one of these cities is sold by a Levite and is not bought back, it must be returned in the Year of Restoration,#25.33 Probable text If a house… Restoration; Hebrew unclear. because the houses which the Levites own in their cities are their permanent property among the people of Israel. 34But the pasture land round the Levite cities shall never be sold; it is their property for ever.
Loans to the Poor
35 #
Deut 15.7–8
If a fellow-Israelite living near you becomes poor and cannot support himself or herself, you must provide for them as you would for hired servants, so that they can continue to live near you. 36Do not charge them any interest, but obey God and let your fellow-Israelites live near you. 37#Ex 22.25; Deut 23.19–20Do not make them pay interest on the money you lend them, and do not make a profit on the food you sell them. 38This is the command of the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt in order to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.
Release of Slaves
39 #
Ex 21.2–6; Deut 15.12–18 If a fellow-Israelite living near you becomes so poor that he sells himself to you as a slave, you shall not make him do the work of a slave. 40He shall stay with you as a hired servant and serve you until the next Year of Restoration. 41At that time he and his children shall leave you and return to his family and to the property of his ancestors. 42The people of Israel are the LORD's slaves, and he brought them out of Egypt; they must not be sold into slavery. 43Do not treat them harshly, but obey your God. 44If you need slaves, you may buy them from the nations round you. 45You may also buy the children of the foreigners who are living among you. Such children born in your land may become your property, 46and you may leave them as an inheritance to your sons, whom they must serve as long as they live. But you must not treat any of your fellow-Israelites harshly.
47Suppose a foreigner living with you becomes rich, while a fellow-Israelite becomes poor and sells himself as a slave to that foreigner or to a member of his family. 48After he is sold, he still has the right to be bought back. One of his brothers 49or his uncle or his cousin or another of his close relatives may buy him back; or if he himself earns enough, he may buy his own freedom. 50He must consult the one who bought him, and they must count the years from the time he sold himself until the next Year of Restoration and must set the price for his release on the basis of the wages paid to a hired servant. 51-52He must refund a part of the purchase price according to the number of years left, 53as if he had been hired on an annual basis. His master must not treat him harshly. 54If he is not set free in any of these ways, he and his children must be set free in the next Year of Restoration. 55An Israelite cannot be a permanent slave, because the people of Israel are the LORD's slaves. He brought them out of Egypt; he is the LORD their God.
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Leviticus 25: GNBUK
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Good News Bible. Scripture taken from the Good News Bible (r) (Today's English Version Second Edition, UK/British Edition). Copyright © 1992 British & Foreign Bible Society. Used by permission.
Leviticus 25
25
The Sabbatic Year and Year of Jubilee
1The Lord spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai, saying, 2“Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘When you come into the land which I am giving you, then the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. 3For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its crop. 4But in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord; you shall not sow [seed in] your field nor prune your vineyard. 5Whatever reseeds itself (uncultivated) in your harvest you shall not reap, nor shall you gather the grapes from your uncultivated vine, it shall be a year of sabbatical rest for the land. 6And all of you shall have for food whatever the [untilled] land produces during its Sabbath year; yourself, and your male and female slaves, your hired servant, and the foreigners who reside among you, 7even your domestic animals and the [wild] animals that are in your land shall have all its crops to eat.
The Year of Jubilee
8‘You are also to count off seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years, so that you have the time of the seven Sabbaths of years, namely, forty-nine years. 9Then you shall sound the ram’s horn everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month (almost October); on the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout your land. 10And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year and #25:10 The quote on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia is from this verse and reads, “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.”proclaim freedom [for the slaves] throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee (year of remission) for you, and each of you shall return to his own [ancestral] property [that was sold to another because of poverty], and each of you shall return to his family [from whom he was separated by bondage]. 11That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee for you; you shall not sow [seed], nor reap what reseeds itself, nor gather the grapes of the uncultivated vines. 12For it is the Jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat its crops out of the field.
13‘In this Year of Jubilee each of you shall return to his own [ancestral] property. 14If you sell anything to your friend or buy from your friend, you shall not wrong one another. 15According to the number of years after the Jubilee, you shall #25:15 The transfer of land in Israel was more like a lease than an outright purchase. Since all property reverted to the original owner at the Jubilee year, the purchaser would pay a price only for the years of use remaining until the next Jubilee.buy from your friend. And he is to sell to you according to the number of years of crops [which may be harvested before you must restore the property to him]. 16If the years [until the next Jubilee] are many, you shall increase the price, but if the years remaining are few, you shall reduce the price, because it is the number of crops that he is selling to you. 17You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God [with profound reverence]; for I am the Lord your God.
18‘Therefore you shall carry out My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them, so that you may live securely on the land. 19Then the land will yield its produce, so that you can eat your fill and live securely on it. 20And if you say, “What are we going to eat in the seventh year if we do not sow [seed] or gather in our crops?” 21then [this is My answer:] I will order My [special] blessing for you in the sixth year, so that it will produce [sufficient] crops for three years. 22When you are sowing the eighth year, you can still eat old things from the crops, eating the old until the ninth year when its crop comes in.
The Law of Redemption
23‘The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; you are [only] foreigners and temporary residents with Me. [Heb 11:13; 1 Pet 2:11-17] 24So in all the country that you possess, you are to provide for the redemption of the land [in the Year of Jubilee].
25‘If a fellow countryman of yours becomes so poor he has to sell some of his property, then his nearest relative is to come and buy back (redeem) what his relative has sold. 26Or in case a man has no relative [to redeem his property], but he has become more prosperous and has enough to buy it back, 27then he shall calculate the years since its sale and refund the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and so return to his [ancestral] property. [1 Kin 21:2, 3] 28But if #25:28 Lit his hand has not found enough.he is unable to redeem it, then what he has sold shall remain in the hands of the purchaser until the Year of Jubilee; but at the Jubilee it shall revert, and he may return to his property.
29‘If a man sells a house in a walled city, then his right of redemption remains valid for a full year after its sale; his right of redemption lasts a full year. 30But if it is not redeemed for him within a full year, then the house that is in the walled city passes permanently and irrevocably to the purchaser throughout his generations. It does not revert back in the Year of Jubilee. 31The houses of the villages that have no surrounding walls, however, shall be considered as open fields. They may be redeemed, and revert in the Year of Jubilee. 32As for the cities of the Levites, the Levites have a permanent right of redemption for the houses in the cities which they possess. 33Therefore, what is [purchased] from the Levites may be redeemed [by a Levite], and the house that was sold in the city they possess reverts in the Year of Jubilee, for the houses in the Levite cities are their [ancestral] property among the Israelites. 34But the pasture lands of their cities may not be sold, for that is their permanent possession.
Of Poor Countrymen
35‘Now if your fellow countryman becomes poor and his hand falters with you [that is, he has trouble repaying you for something], then you are to help and sustain him, [with courtesy and consideration] like [you would] a stranger or a temporary resident [without property], so that he may live among you. [1 John 3:17] 36Do not charge him usurious interest, but fear your God [with profound reverence], so your countryman may [continue to] live among you. 37You shall not give him your money at interest, nor your food at a profit. 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‘And if your fellow countryman becomes so poor [in his dealings] with you that he sells himself to you [as payment for a debt], you shall not let him do the work of a slave [who is ineligible for redemption], 40but he is to be with you as a hired man, as if he were a temporary resident; he shall serve with you until the Year of Jubilee, 41and then he shall leave you, he and his children with him, and shall go back to his own family and return to the property of his fathers. 42For the Israelites are My servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold in a slave sale. [1 Cor 7:23] 43You shall not rule over him with harshness (severity, oppression), but you are to fear your God [with profound reverence]. [Eph 6:9; Col 4:1] 44As for your male and female slaves whom you may have—you may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you. 45Moreover, from the children of the strangers who live as aliens among you, from them you may buy slaves and from their families who are with you, whom they have produced in your land; they may become your possession. 46You may even bequeath them as an inheritance to your children after you, to receive as a possession; you can use them as permanent slaves. But in respect to your fellow countrymen, the children of Israel, you shall not rule over one another with harshness (severity, oppression).
Of Redeeming a Poor Man
47‘Now if the financial means of a stranger or temporary resident among you become sufficient, and your fellow countryman becomes poor in comparison to him and sells himself to the stranger who is living among you or to the descendants of the stranger’s family, 48then after he is sold he shall have the right of redemption. One of his relatives may redeem him: 49either his uncle or his uncle’s son may redeem him, or one of his blood relatives from his family may redeem him; or if he prospers, he may redeem himself. 50Then he [or his redeemer] shall calculate with his purchaser from the year when he sold himself to the purchaser to the Year of Jubilee, and the [original] price of his sale shall be adjusted according to the number of years. The time he was with his owner shall be considered as that of a hired man. 51If there are still many years [before the Year of Jubilee], in proportion to them he must refund [to the purchaser] part of the price of his sale for his redemption and release. 52And if only a few years remain until the Year of Jubilee, he shall so calculate it with him. He is to refund the proportionate amount for his release. 53Like a man hired year by year he shall deal with him; he shall not rule over him with harshness in your sight. 54Even if he is not redeemed during these years and under these provisions, then he shall go free in the Year of Jubilee, he and his children with him. 55For the children of Israel are My servants; My servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.
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