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.
Wayyiqra (Leviticus) 25
25
1And יהוה spoke to Mosheh on Mount Sinai, saying,
2“Speak to the children of Yisra’ĕl, and say to them, ‘When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall observe a Sabbath to יהוה.
3‘Six years you sow your field, and six years you prune your vineyard, and gather in its fruit,
4but in the seventh year the land is to have a Sabbath of rest, a Sabbath to יהוה. Do not sow your field and do not prune your vineyard.
5‘Do not reap what grows of its own of your harvest, and do not gather the grapes of your unpruned vine, for it is a year of rest for the land.
6‘And the Sabbath of the land shall be to you for food, for you and your servant, and for your female servant and your hired servant, and for the stranger who sojourns with you,
7and for your livestock and the beasts that are in your land. All its crops are for food.
8‘And you shall count seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years. And the time of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years.
9‘You shall then sound a shophar-sound on the tenth day of the seventh new moon, on Yom haKippurim#Day of the Coverings or Day of Atonement. cause a shophar#Animal horn - traditionally a ram’s horn. to sound through all your land.
10‘And you shall set the fiftieth year apart, and proclaim release throughout all the land to all its inhabitants, it is a Yoḇel#See Explanatory Notes "Yoḇel" for you. And each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you return to his clan.
11‘The fiftieth year is a Yoḇel to you. Do not sow, nor reap what grows of its own, nor gather from its unpruned vine.
12‘It is a Yoḇel, it is set-apart to you. Eat from the field its crops.
13‘In the Year of this Yoḇel let each one of you return to his possession.
14‘And when you sell whatever to your neighbour or buy from the hand of your neighbour, do not exploit one another.
15‘According to the number of years after the Yoḇel you buy from your neighbour, and according to the number of years of crops he sells to you.
16‘According to the greater number of years you increase its price, and according to the fewer number of years you diminish its price, because he sells to you according to the number of the years of the crops.
17‘And do not oppress one another, but you shall fear your Elohim. For I am יהוה your Elohim.
18‘And you shall do My laws and guard My right-rulings, and shall do them. And you shall dwell in the land in safety,
19‘and the land shall yield its fruit, and you shall eat to satisfaction, and shall dwell there in safety.
20‘And since you might say, “What do we eat in the seventh year, since we do not sow nor gather in our crops?”
21‘Therefore I have commanded My blessing on you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth the crop for three years.
22‘And you shall sow in the eighth year, and eat of the old crop until the ninth year. Eat of the old until its crop comes in.
23‘And the land is not to be sold beyond reclaim, for the land is Mine, for you are sojourners and settlers with Me.
24‘And provide for a redemption for the land, in all the land of your possession.
25‘When your brother becomes poor, and has sold some of his possession, and his redeemer, a close relative comes to redeem it, then he shall redeem what his brother sold.
26‘And when the man has no one to redeem it, but he himself becomes able to redeem it,
27then let him count the years since its sale, and return the remainder to the man to whom he sold it, that he shall return to his possession.
28‘And if his hand has not found enough to give back to him, then what was sold shall remain in the hand of him who bought it until the Year of Yoḇel. And it shall be released in the Yoḇel, and he shall return to his possession.
29‘And when a man sells a house in a walled city, then his right of redemption shall be at the end of the year after it is sold. His right of redemption lasts a year.
30‘But if it is not redeemed within a complete year, then the house in the walled city shall be established beyond reclaim to the buyer of it, throughout his generations. It is not released in the Yoḇel.
31‘The houses of villages, however, which have no wall around them are reckoned as the field of the country. A right of redemption belongs to it, and they are released in the Yoḇel.
32‘As for the cities of the Lĕwites, and the houses in the cities of their possession, the Lĕwites have a right of redemption forever.
33‘And that which is redeemed from the Lĕwites, both the sale of a house and the city of his possession shall be released in the Year of Yoḇel, because the houses in the cities of the Lĕwites are their possession in the midst of the children of Yisra’ĕl.
34‘But the field of the open land of their cities is not sold, for it is their everlasting possession.
35‘And when your brother becomes poor, and his hand has failed with you, then you shall strengthen him, and he shall live with you, like a stranger or a sojourner.
36‘Take no interest from him, or profit, but you shall fear your Elohim, and your brother shall live with you.
37‘Do not lend him your silver on interest, and do not lend him your food for profit.
38‘I am יהוה your Elohim, who brought you out of the land of Mitsrayim, to give you the land of Kena‛an, to be your Elohim.
39‘And when your brother who dwells by you becomes poor, and sells himself to you, do not make him serve as a slave.
40‘But as a hired servant, as a settler he is with you, and serves you until the Year of Yoḇel.
41‘And then he shall leave you, he and his children with him, and shall return to his own clan, even return to the possession of his fathers.
42‘For they are My servants, whom I brought out of the land of Mitsrayim, they are not sold as slaves.
43‘Do not rule over him with harshness, but you shall fear your Elohim.
44‘And your male and female slaves whom you have from the nations that are around you, from them you buy male and female slaves,
45and also from the sons of the strangers sojourning among you, from them you buy, and from their clans who are with you, which they shall bring forth in your land, and they shall be your property.
46‘And you shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them as a possession, they are your slaves for all time. But over your brothers, the children of Yisra’ĕl, you do not rule with harshness, one over another.
47‘Now when a sojourner or a settler with you becomes rich, and your brother with him becomes poor, and sells himself to the settler or sojourner with you, or to a member of the sojourner’s clan,
48after he has been sold, there is a right of redemption to him – one of his brothers does redeem him,
49or his uncle or his uncle’s son does redeem him, or anyone who is a close relative to him in his clan does redeem him, or if he is able, then he shall redeem himself.
50‘And he shall reckon with him who bought him: The price of his release shall be according to the number of years, from the year that he was sold to him until the Year of Yoḇel; as the days of a hired servant it is with him.
51‘If there are yet many years, according to them he repays the price of his redemption, from the silver of his purchase.
52‘And if few years are left until the Year of Yoḇel, then he shall reckon with him, and according to his years he repays him the price of his redemption.
53‘He is with him as a yearly hired servant, and he does not rule with harshness over him before your eyes.
54‘And if he is not redeemed in these years, then he shall be released in the Year of Yoḇel, he and his children with him.
55‘Because the children of Yisra’ĕl are servants to Me, they are My servants whom I brought out of the land of Mitsrayim. I am יהוה your Elohim.
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