Leviticus 25
25
The Seventh Year
(Deuteronomy 15.1-11)
1 #
Ex 23.10,11. When Moses was on Mount Sinai, the Lord told him 2to say to the community of Israel:
After you enter the land that I am giving you, it must be allowed to rest one year out of every seven. 3You may raise grain and grapes for six years, 4but the seventh year you must let your fields and vineyards rest in honor of me, your Lord. 5This is to be a time of complete rest for your fields and vineyards, so don't harvest anything they produce. 6-7However, you and your slaves and your hired workers, as well as any domestic or wild animals, may eat whatever grows on its own.
The Year of Celebration
The Lord said to his people:
8Once every 49 years 9on the tenth day of the seventh month,#25.9 seventh month: See the note at 16.29. which is also the Great Day of Forgiveness,#25.9 Great Day of Forgiveness: See the note at 16.34. trumpets are to be blown everywhere in the land. 10This fiftieth year#25.10 fiftieth year: The year following seven periods of seven years. is sacred—it is a time of freedom and of celebration when everyone will receive back their original property, and slaves will return home to their families. 11This is a year of complete celebration, so don't plant any seed or harvest what your fields or vineyards produce. 12In this time of sacred celebration you may eat only what grows on its own.
13During this year, all property must go back to its original owner. 14-15So when you buy or sell farmland, the price is to be determined by the number of crops it can produce before the next Year of Celebration. Don't try to cheat. 16If it is a long time before the next Year of Celebration, the price will be higher, because what is really being sold are the crops that the land can produce. 17I am the Lord your God, so obey me and don't cheat anyone.
18-19If you obey my laws and teachings, you will live safely in the land and enjoy its abundant crops. 20Don't ever worry about what you will eat during the seventh year when you are forbidden to plant or harvest. 21I will see to it that you harvest enough in the sixth year to last for three years. 22In the eighth year you will live on what you harvested in the sixth year, but in the ninth year you will eat what you plant and harvest in the eighth year.
23No land may be permanently bought or sold. It all belongs to me—it isn't your land, and you only live there for a little while.
24When property is being sold, the original owner must be given the first chance to buy it.
25If any of you Israelites become so poor that you are forced to sell your property, your closest relative must buy it back, 26if that relative has the money. Later, if you can afford to buy it, 27you must pay enough to make up for what the present owner will lose on it before the next Year of Celebration, when the property would become yours again. 28But if you don't have the money to pay the present owner a fair price, you will have to wait until the Year of Celebration, when the property will once again become yours.
29If you sell a house in a walled city, you have only one year in which to buy it back. 30If you don't buy it back before that year is up, it becomes the permanent property of the one who bought it, and it will not be returned to you in the Year of Celebration. 31But a house out in a village may be bought back at any time just like a field. And it must be returned to its original owner in the Year of Celebration. 32If any Levites own houses inside a walled city, they will always have the right to buy them back. 33And any houses that they do not buy back will be returned to them in the Year of Celebration, because these homes are their permanent property among the people of Israel. 34No pastureland owned by the Levi tribe can ever be sold; it is their permanent possession.
Help for the Poor
The Lord said:
35 #
Dt 15.7,8. If any of your people become poor and unable to support themselves, you must help them, just as you are supposed to help foreigners who live among you. 36-37#Ex 22.25; Dt 23.19,20. Don't take advantage of them by charging any kind of interest or selling them food for profit. Instead, honor me by letting them stay where they now live. 38Remember—I am the Lord your God! I rescued you from Egypt and gave you the land of Canaan, so that I would be your God.
39 #
Ex 21.2-6; Dt 15.12-18. Suppose some of your people become so poor that they have to sell themselves and become your slaves. 40Then you must treat them as servants, rather than as slaves. And in the Year of Celebration they are to be set free, 41so they and their children may return home to their families and property. 42I brought them out of Egypt to be my servants, not to be sold as slaves. 43So obey me, and don't be cruel to the poor.
44If you want slaves, buy them from other nations 45or from the foreigners who live in your own country, and make them your property. 46You can own them, and even leave them to your children when you die, but do not make slaves of your own people or be cruel to them.
47Even if some of you Israelites become so much in debt that you must sell yourselves to foreigners in your country, 48you still have the right to be set free by a relative, such as a brother 49or uncle or cousin, or some other family member. In fact, if you ever get enough money, you may buy your own freedom 50by paying your owner for the number of years you would still be a slave before the next Year of Celebration. 51-52The longer the time until then, the more you will have to pay. 53And even while you are the slaves of foreigners in your own country, your people must make sure that you are not mistreated. 54If you cannot gain your freedom in any of these ways, both you and your children will still be set free in the Year of Celebration. 55People of Israel, I am the Lord your God, and I brought you out of Egypt to be my own servants.
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Leviticus 25: CEV
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Contemporary English Version, Second Edition (CEV®)
© 2006 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.
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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