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
1And the Lord spoke to Moses in mount Sinai, saying:
2Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: When you shall have entered into the land which I will give you, observe the rest of the sabbath to the Lord.
3Six years thou shalt sow thy field and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and shalt gather the fruits thereof.
4But in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath to the land, of the resting of the Lord. Thou shalt not sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard.
5What the ground shall bring forth of itself thou shalt not reap: neither shalt thou gather the grapes of the first-fruits as a vintage. For it is a year of rest to the land.
6But they shall be unto you for meat, to thee and to thy man-servant, to thy maid-servant and thy hireling, and to the strangers that sojourn with thee.
7All things that grow shall be meat to thy beasts and to thy cattle.
8Thou shalt also number to thee seven weeks of years: that is to say, seven times seven, which together make forty-nine years.
9And thou shalt sound the trumpet in the seventh month, the tenth day of the month, in the time of the expiation in all your land.
10And thou shalt sanctify the fiftieth year, and shalt proclaim remission to all the inhabitants of thy land: for it is the year of jubilee. Every man shall return to his possession, and every one shall go back to his former family:
11Because it is the jubilee and the fiftieth year. You shall not sow, nor reap the things that grow in the field of their own accord, neither shall you gather the first-fruits of the vines,
12Because of the sanctification of the jubilee. But as they grow you shall presently eat them.
13In the year of the jubilee all shall return to their possessions.
14When thou shalt sell any thing to thy neighbour, or shalt buy of him; grieve not thy brother. But thou shalt buy of him according to the number of years from the jubilee.
15And he shall sell to thee according to the computation of the fruits.
16The more years remain after the jubilee, the more shall the price increase: and the less time is counted, so much the less shall the purchase cost. For he shall sell to thee the time of the fruits.
17Do not afflict your countrymen: but let every one fear his God. Because I am the Lord your God.
18Do my precepts, and keep my judgments, and fulfil them: that you may dwell in the land without any fear.
19And the ground may yield you its fruits, of which you may eat your fill, fearing no man's invasion.
20But if you say: What shall we eat the seventh year, if we sow not, nor gather our fruits?
21I will give you my blessing the sixth year: and it shall yield the fruits of three years.
22And the eighth year you shall sow, and shall eat of the old fruits, until the ninth year: till new grow up, you shall eat the old store.
23The land also shall not be sold for ever: because it is mine, and you are strangers and sojourners with me.
24For which cause all the country of your possession shall be under the condition of redemption.
25If thy brother being impoverished sell his little possession, and his kinsman will: he may redeem what he had sold.
26But if he have no kinsman, and he himself can find the price to redeem it:
27The value of the fruits shall be counted from that time when he sold it. And the overplus he shall restore to the buyer, and so shall receive his possession again.
28But if his hands find not the means to repay the price, the buyer shall have what he bought, until the year of the jubilee. For in that year all that is sold shall return to the owner, and to the ancient possessor.
29He that selleth a house within the walls of a city, shall have the liberty to redeem it, until one year be expired.
30If he redeem it not, and the whole year be fully out, the buyer shall possess it, and his posterity for ever, and it cannot be redeemed, not even in the jubilee.
31But if the house be in a village, that hath no walls, it shall be sold according to the same law as the fields. If it be not redeemed before, in the jubilee it shall return to the owner.
32The houses of Levites, which are in cities, may always be redeemed.
33If they be not redeemed, in the jubilee they shall all return to the owners: because the houses of the cities of the Levites are for their possessions among the children of Israel.
34But let not their suburbs be sold, because it is a perpetual possession.
35If thy brother be impoverished, and weak of hand, and thou receive him as a stranger and sojourner, and he live with thee:
36Take not usury of him nor more than thou gavest. Fear thy God, that thy brother may live with thee.
37Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury: nor exact of him any increase of fruits.
38I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that I might give you the land of Chanaan, and might be your God.
39If thy brother constrained by poverty sell himself to thee, thou shalt not oppress him with the service of bondservants.
40But he shall be as a hireling, and a sojourner: he shall work with thee until the year of the jubilee.
41And afterwards he shall go out with his children: and shall return to his kindred and to the possession of his fathers.
42For they are my servants, and I brought them out of the land of Egypt: let them not be sold as bondmen.
43Afflict him not by might: but fear thy God.
44Let your bondmen, and your bondwomen, be of the nations that are round about you:
45And of the strangers that sojourn among you, or that were born of them in your land. These you shall have for servants:
46And by right of inheritance shall leave them to your posterity, and shall possess them for ever. But oppress not your brethren the children of Israel by might.
47If the hand of a stranger or a sojourner grow strong among you, and thy brother being impoverished sell himself to him, or to any of his race:
48After the sale he may be redeemed. He that will of his brethren shall redeem him:
49Either his uncle, or his uncle's son, or his kinsman, by blood, or by affinity. But if he himself be able also, he shall redeem himself:
50Counting only the years from the time of his selling unto the year of the jubilee: and counting the money that he was sold for, according to the number of the years and the reckoning of a hired servant.
51If there be many years that remain until the jubilee, according to them shall he also repay the price.
52If few, he shall make the reckoning with him according to the number of the years: and shall repay to the buyer of what remaineth of the years.
53His wages being allowed for which he served before: he shall not afflict him violently in thy sight.
54And if by these means he cannot be redeemed, in the year of the jubilee he shall go out with his children.
55For the children of Israel are my servants, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt.
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An historical text maintained by the British and Foreign Bible Society.