Leviticus 25
25
The sabbatical year
1The LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai, 2Speak to the Israelites and say to them: Once you enter the land that I am giving you, the land must celebrate a sabbath rest to the LORD. 3You will plant your fields for six years, and prune your vineyards and gather their crops for six years. 4But in the seventh year the land will have a special sabbath rest, a Sabbath to the LORD: You must not plant your fields or prune your vineyards. 5You must not harvest the secondary growth of your produce or gather the grapes of your freely growing vines. It will be a year of special rest for the land. 6Whatever the land produces during its sabbath will be your food—for you, for your male and female servants, and for your hired laborers and foreign guests who live with you, 7as well as for your livestock and for the wild animals in your land. All of the land’s produce can be eaten.
The Jubilee year
8Count off seven weeks of years—that is, seven times seven—so that the seven weeks of years totals forty-nine years. 9Then have the trumpet#25.9 Heb shofar blown on the tenth day of the seventh month.#25.9 September–October, Tishrei Have the trumpet blown throughout your land on the Day of Reconciliation. 10You will make the fiftieth year holy, proclaiming freedom throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It will be a Jubilee year#25.10 Heb yobel for you: each of you must return to your family property and to your extended family. 11The fiftieth year will be a Jubilee year for you. Do not plant, do not harvest the secondary growth, and do not gather from the freely growing vines 12because it is a Jubilee: it will be holy to you. You can eat only the produce directly out of the field. 13Each of you must return to your family property in this year of Jubilee.
14When you sell something to or buy something from your fellow citizen, you must not cheat each other. 15You will buy from your fellow citizen according to the number of years since the Jubilee; he will sell to you according to the number of years left for harvests. 16You will raise the price if there are more years, or lower the price if there are less years because it is the number of harvests that are being sold to you. 17You must not cheat each other but fear your God because I am the LORD your God. 18You will observe my rules, and you will keep my regulations and do them so that you can live securely on the land.
Food during fallow years
19The land will give its fruit so that you can eat your fill and live securely on it. 20Suppose you ask, “What will we eat in the seventh year if we don’t plant or gather our crops then?” 21I will send my blessing on you in the sixth year so that it will make enough produce for three years. 22You can plant again in the eighth year and eat food from the previous year’s produce until the ninth year. Until its produce comes, you will eat the food from the previous year.
Buying back family property
23The land must not be permanently sold because the land is mine. You are just immigrants and foreign guests of mine.
24Throughout the whole land that you possess, you must allow for the land to be bought back. 25When one of your fellow Israelites faces financial difficulty and must sell part of their family property, the closest relative#25.25 Or next of kin; traditionally redeemer will come and buy back what their fellow Israelite has sold. 26If the person doesn’t have someone to buy it back, but then manages to afford buying it back, 27they must calculate the years since its sale and refund the balance to the person to whom they sold it. Then it will go back to the family property.#25.27 Or they will go back to their family property; also in 25:28. 28If they cannot afford to make a refund to the buyer, whatever was sold will remain in the possession of the buyer until the Jubilee year. It will be released in the Jubilee year, at which point it will return to the family property.
29When a person sells a home in a walled city, it may be bought back until a year after its sale. The period for buying it back will be one year. 30If it is not bought back before a full year has passed, the house in the walled city will belong to the buyer permanently and their descendants forever. It will not be released at the Jubilee. 31But houses in settlements that are unwalled will be considered as if they were country fields. They can be bought back, and they must be released at the Jubilee.
32Levites will always have the right to buy back homes in the levitical cities that are part of their family property. 33Levite property that can be bought back—houses sold in a city that is their family property—must be released at the Jubilee, because homes in levitical cities are the Levites’ family property among the Israelites. 34But the pastureland around their cities cannot be sold, because that is their permanent family property.
Poor Israelites and slavery
35If one of your fellow Israelites faces financial difficulty and is in a shaky situation with you,#25.35 Heb uncertain you must assist them as you would an immigrant or foreign guest so that they can survive among you. 36Do not take interest from them, or any kind of profit from interest, but fear your God so that your fellow Israelite can survive among you. 37Do not lend a poor Israelite money with interest or lend food at a profit. 38I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt to give you Canaan’s land and to be your God.
39If one of your fellow Israelites faces financial difficulty with you and sells themselves to you, you must not make him work as a slave. 40Instead, they will be like a hired laborer or foreign guest to you. They will work for you until the Jubilee year, 41at which point the poor Israelite along with their children will be released from you. They can return to their extended family and to their family property. 42You must do this because these people are my servants—I brought them out of Egypt’s land. They must not be sold as slaves. 43You will not harshly rule over them but must fear your God.
44Regarding male or female slaves that you are allowed to have: You can buy a male or a female slave from the nations that are around you. 45You can also buy them from the foreign guests who live with you and from their extended families that are with you, who were born in your land. These can belong to you as property. 46You can pass them on to your children as inheritance that they can own as permanent property. You can make these people work as slaves, but you must not rule harshly over your own people, the Israelites.
47If an immigrant or foreign guest prospers financially among you, but your fellow Israelite faces financial difficulty and so sells themselves to the immigrant or foreign guest, or to a descendant of a foreigner, 48the Israelite will have the right to be bought back after they sold themselves. One of their relatives can buy them back: 49their uncle or cousin can buy them back; one of their blood relatives from their family can buy them back; or they may be able to afford their own purchase. 50The Israelite will calculate with their owner the time from the year they were sold until the Jubilee year. The price of their release will be based on the number of years they were with the owner, as in the case of a hired laborer. 51If there are many years left before the Jubilee, the Israelite will pay for their purchase in proportion to their purchase price. 52If only a few years are left, they will calculate that and pay for their purchase according to the years of service. 53Regardless, the Israelite will be to the buyer like a yearly laborer; the buyer must not harshly rule over them in your sight. 54If the Israelite is not bought back in one of these ways, they and their children must be released in the Jubilee year 55because the Israelites belong to me as servants. They are my servants—I brought them out of Egypt’s land; I am the LORD your God.
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Leviticus 25: CEB
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2011 Common English Bible. All rights reserved.
Leviticus 25
25
Leviticus 25
1¶ And the Lord spoke unto Moses in Mount Sinai, saying,
2Speak unto the sons of Israel and say unto them, When ye have come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the Lord.
3Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard and gather in the fruit thereof,
4but the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath of rest, a sabbath unto the Lord: thou shalt neither sow thy field nor prune thy vineyard.
5That which grows of its own accord in thy land that was harvested, thou shalt not reap; neither fence in the grapes of thy consecrated vine; for it is a year of rest unto the land.
6But the sabbath of the land shall be food for you, for thee and for thy slave and for thy maid and for thy hired servant and for thy stranger that sojourns with thee
7and for thy beast and for the animals that are in thy land shall all the fruit thereof be food.
8¶ And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty-nine years.
9Then shalt thou cause the shofar to sound an alarm on the tenth day of the seventh month; in the day of the reconciliations shall ye cause the shofar to sound throughout all your land.
10And ye shall sanctify the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof; it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every one unto his possession, and ye shall return each one unto his family.
11A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you; ye shall not sow nor reap that which grows of itself in it nor fence in thy consecrated vine.
12For it is the jubilee; it shall be holy unto you; ye shall eat the fruit of the land.
13In this year of jubilee ye shall return each one unto his possession.
14And if thou sell anything unto thy neighbour or buy anything of thy neighbour’s hand, ye shall not oppress one another.
15According to the number of years after the jubilee thou shalt buy of thy neighbour, and according unto the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee.
16According to the multitude of years thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of years thou shalt diminish the price of it; for according to the number of the years of the fruits does he sell unto thee.
17Ye shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy God; for I am the Lord your God.
18Execute, therefore, my statutes and keep my rights and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety;
19and the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat your fill and dwell therein in safety.
20And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow nor gather in our fruits,
21then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years.
22And ye shall sow the eighth year and eat yet of old fruit; until the ninth year, until her fruits come in ye shall eat of the old store.
23¶ The land shall not be sold for ever, for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.
24Therefore, in all the land of your possession, ye shall grant a redemption for the land.
25If thy brother becomes poor and has sold away some of his possession, his redeemer shall come, his closest kinsman, and shall redeem that which his brother sold.
26And when the man has no redeemer and is able to stretch forth his hand and find enough for his redemption,
27then he shall count the years from the sale thereof and pay that which remains unto the man to whom he sold it; that he may return unto his possession.
28But if he is not able to stretch forth his hand and find enough to return unto it, then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of the one that has bought it until the year of jubilee; and in the jubilee the land shall go out free, and he shall return unto his possession.
29And if a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; within a full year may he redeem it.
30And if it is not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be established for ever to the one that bought it for his descendants; it shall not go out in the jubilee.
31But the houses of the villages which have no wall round about them shall be counted as the fields of the country; they may be redeemed, and they shall go out in the jubilee.
32Notwithstanding the cities of the Levites and the houses of the cities of their possession, the Levites may redeem at any time.
33And if a man makes a purchase from the Levites, then the house that was sold and the city of his possession, shall go out in the year of jubilee; for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the sons of Israel.
34But the field of the suburbs of their cities may not be sold, for it is their perpetual possession.
35And if thy brother becomes poor and comes unto thee, then thou shalt receive him; as a stranger, or a sojourner, he shall live with thee.
36Take thou no usury of him, or increase; but thou shalt have the fear of thy God, and thy brother shall live with thee.
37Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy food for increase.
38I AM your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.
39¶ And when thy brother becomes poor, being with thee, and if he should sell himself unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a slave.
40As a hired servant and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee.
41Then he shall depart free from thy house, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he be restored.
42For they belong to me, I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves.
43Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor, but shalt fear thy God.
44Both thy menslaves and thy maidslaves, which thou shalt have, shall be of the Gentiles that are round about you; of them shall ye buy slaves.
45Ye may also buy of the children of the strangers that live among you and of those of their lineage that are born in your land, who are with you, and they shall be your possession.
46And ye shall possess them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit as a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever; but over your brethren, the sons of Israel, ye shall not rule over one another with rigor.
47And if a sojourner or stranger who is with thee becomes rich and thy brother who is with him becomes poor and sells himself unto the stranger or sojourner who is with thee or to the race of the lineage of the stranger,
48after he is sold he shall have redemption; one of his brethren shall redeem him;
49either his uncle or his uncle’s son shall redeem him; or any that is near of kin unto him of his lineage shall redeem him; or if he is able, he may redeem himself.
50And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold to him unto the year of jubilee; and the price of his sale shall be according to the number of years, according to the time of a hired servant shall it be with him.
51If there are yet many years, according unto them he shall give again the price of his redemption out of the money that he was bought for.
52And if there remain but few years unto the year of jubilee, then he shall count with him, and according unto his years shall he give him again the price of his redemption.
53 And as a yearly hired servant shall he be with him; and the other shall not rule with rigor over him in thy sight.
54And if he is not redeemed in these years, then he shall go out in the year of jubilee, both he and his children with him.
55For the sons of Israel are mine; they are my slaves whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt. I AM your God.
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The Jubilee Bible 2000 (JUB) by Ransom Press International