Deuteronomy 15
15
Year of canceled debts
1Every seventh year you must cancel all debts. 2This is how the cancellation is to be handled: Creditors will forgive the loans of their fellow Israelites. They won’t demand repayment from their neighbors or their relatives because the LORD’s year of debt cancellation has been announced. 3You are allowed to demand payment from foreigners, but whatever is owed you from your fellow Israelites you must forgive. 4Of course there won’t be any poor persons among you because the LORD will bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance, 5but only if you carefully obey the LORD your God’s voice, by carefully doing every bit of this commandment that I’m giving you right now. 6Once the LORD your God has blessed you, exactly as he said he would, you will end up lending to many different peoples but won’t need to borrow a thing. You will dominate many different peoples, but they won’t dominate you.
7Now if there are some poor persons among you, say one of your fellow Israelites in one of your cities in the land that the LORD your God is giving you, don’t be hard-hearted or tightfisted toward your poor fellow Israelites. 8To the contrary! Open your hand wide to them. You must generously lend them whatever they need. 9But watch yourself! Make sure no wicked thought crosses your mind, such as, The seventh year is coming—the year of debt cancellation—so that you resent your poor fellow Israelites and don’t give them anything. If you do that, they will cry out to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin. 10No, give generously to needy persons. Don’t resent giving to them because it is this very thing that will lead to the LORD your God’s blessing you in all you do and work at. 11Poor persons will never disappear from the earth. That’s why I’m giving you this command: you must open your hand generously to your fellow Israelites, to the needy among you, and to the poor who live with you in your land.
12If any of your fellow Hebrews, male or female, sell themselves into your service, they can work for you for six years, but in the seventh year you must set them free from your service. 13Furthermore, when you set them free from your service, you must not let them go empty-handed. 14Instead, provide for them fully from your flock, food, and wine. You must give to them from that with which the LORD your God has blessed you. 15Remember how each of you was a slave in Egypt and how the LORD your God saved you. That’s why I am commanding you to do this right now. (16Now if your male servant says to you: “I don’t want to leave your service” because he loves you and your family and because life is good for him in your service, 17then you may take a needle and pierce his ear with it into the doorframe. From that point on, he will be your permanent servant. Do the same thing for female servants.) 18Don’t consider it a hardship to set these servants free from your service, because they worked for you for six years—at a value double that of a paid worker. The LORD your God will bless you in everything that you do.
19You must devote every oldest male animal from your herds or flocks to the LORD your God. Don’t plow with your oldest male ox and don’t shear your oldest male sheep. 20Year after year, you and your family are allowed to eat these animals in the presence of the LORD your God, in the location the LORD selects. 21But if there is any defect in it, lameness, blindness, any flaw whatsoever, you must not sacrifice it to the LORD your God. 22You are allowed to eat those in your own cities, whether you are polluted or purified, just as you would eat gazelle or deer. 23Even so, don’t consume any blood. Pour it out on the ground, like water.
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Deuteronomy 15: CEB
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2011 Common English Bible. All rights reserved.
Deuteronomy 15
15
1At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. 2And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release that which he hath lent unto his neighbor; he shall not exact it of his neighbor and his brother; because Jehovah’s release hath been proclaimed. 3Of a foreigner thou mayest exact it: but whatsoever of thine is with thy brother thy hand shall release. 4Howbeit there shall be no poor with thee (for Jehovah will surely bless thee in the land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it), 5if only thou diligently hearken unto the voice of Jehovah thy God, to observe to do all this commandment which I command thee this day. 6For Jehovah thy God will bless thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over thee.
7If there be with thee a poor man, one of thy brethren, within any of thy gates in thy land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thy heart, nor shut thy hand from thy poor brother; 8but thou shalt surely open thy hand unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need in that which he wanteth. 9Beware that there be not a base thought in thy heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou give him nought; and he cry unto Jehovah against thee, and it be sin unto thee. 10Thou shalt surely give him, and thy heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him; because that for this thing Jehovah thy God will bless thee in all thy work, and in all that thou puttest thy hand unto. 11For the poor will never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt surely open thy hand unto thy brother, to thy needy, and to thy poor, in thy land.
12If thy brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. 13And when thou lettest him go free from thee, thou shalt not let him go empty: 14thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy threshing-floor, and out of thy winepress; as Jehovah thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him. 15And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and Jehovah thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing to-day. 16And it shall be, if he say unto thee, I will not go out from thee; because he loveth thee and thy house, because he is well with thee; 17then thou shalt take an awl, and thrust it through his ear unto the door, and he shall be thy servant for ever. And also unto thy maid-servant thou shalt do likewise. 18It shall not seem hard unto thee, when thou lettest him go free from thee; for to the double of the hire of a hireling hath he served thee six years: and Jehovah thy God will bless thee in all that thou doest.
19All the firstling males that are born of thy herd and of thy flock thou shalt sanctify unto Jehovah thy God: thou shalt do no work with the firstling of thy herd, nor shear the firstling of thy flock. 20Thou shalt eat it before Jehovah thy God year by year in the place which Jehovah shall choose, thou and thy household. 21And if it have any blemish, as if it be lame or blind, any ill blemish whatsoever, thou shalt not sacrifice it unto Jehovah thy God. 22Thou shalt eat it within thy gates: the unclean and the clean shall eat it alike, as the gazelle, and as the hart. 23Only thou shalt not eat the blood thereof; thou shalt pour it out upon the ground as water.
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