Leviticus 25
25
A Time of Rest for the Land
1The Lord spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai. He said, 2“Tell the Israelites: When you enter the land that I am giving to you, you must let the land have a special time of rest. This will be a special time of rest to honor the Lord. 3You will plant seed in your field for six years. You will trim your vineyards for six years and bring in its fruits. 4But during the seventh year, you will let the land rest. This will be a special time of rest to honor the Lord. You must not plant seed in your field or trim your vineyards. 5You must not cut the crops that grow by themselves after your harvest. You must not gather the grapes from your vines that are not trimmed. The land will have a year of rest.
6“The land will have a year of rest, but you will still have enough food. There will be enough food for your men and women servants. There will be food for your hired workers and for the foreigners living in your country. 7And there will be enough food for your cattle and other animals to eat.
Jubilee—the Year of Release
8“You will also count seven groups of seven years. This will be 49 years. During that time there will be seven years of rest for the land. 9On the Day of Atonement, you must blow a ram’s horn. That will be on the tenth day of the seventh month. You must blow the ram’s horn through the whole country. 10You will make the 50th year a special year. You will announce freedom for everyone living in your country. This time will be called ‘Jubilee.’ Each of you will go back to your own property.#25:10 own property In Israel, the land belonged to the family or tribe. A person might sell his land, but at Jubilee that land again belonged to the family and tribe that it was originally given to. And each of you will go back to your own family. 11The 50th year will be a special celebration#25:11 special celebration Literally, “Jubilee.” See “Jubilee” in the Word List. for you. Don’t plant seeds, don’t harvest the crops that grow by themselves, and don’t gather grapes from the vines that are not trimmed. 12That year is Jubilee. It will be a holy time for you. You will eat the crops that come from the field. 13In the year of Jubilee, you will go back to your own property.
14“Don’t cheat your neighbors when you sell your land to them. Don’t cheat one another when you buy or sell land. 15If you want to buy your neighbor’s land, count the number of years since the last Jubilee, and use that number to decide the right price. You are only buying the rights for harvesting crops until the next Jubilee. 16If there are many years before the next Jubilee, the price will be high. If the years are few, the price will be lower. So your neighbor is really only selling a number of crops to you. At the next Jubilee, the land will again belong to that family. 17You must not cheat each other. You must honor your God. I am the Lord your God.
18“Remember my laws and rules. Obey them and you will live safely in your country. 19And the land will produce good crops for you. Then you will have plenty of food, and you will live safely on the land.
20“But maybe you will say, ‘If we don’t plant seeds or gather our crops, we will not have anything to eat during the seventh year.’ 21I will order my blessing to come to you during the sixth year. The land will continue growing crops for three years. 22When you plant in the eighth year, you will still be eating from the old crop. You will eat the old crop until the ninth year, when the crop you planted in the eighth year comes in.
Property Laws
23“The land really belongs to me, so you cannot sell it permanently. You are only foreigners and travelers living on my land with me. 24People might sell their land, but the family will always get their land back. 25If someone in your country becomes very poor and must sell their property, a close relative must come and buy it back. 26If there is not a close relative to buy back the land, the person might get enough money to buy it back. 27Then the years must be counted since the land was sold. That number must be used to decide how much to pay for the land. The person must then buy back the land, and it will be their property again. 28But if this first owner cannot find enough money to buy the land back, it will stay in the hands of the one who bought it until the year of Jubilee. Then during that special celebration, the land will go back to the first owner’s family. So the property will again belong to the right family.
29“Anyone who sells a home in a walled city still has the right to get it back until a full year after it was sold. Their right to get the house back will continue one year. 30But if the owner does not buy back the house before a full year is finished, the house that is in the walled city will belong to the one who bought it and to their descendants. The house will not go back to the first owner at the time of Jubilee. 31Towns without walls around them will be treated like open fields. So houses built in these small towns will go back to the first owners at the time of Jubilee.
32“But about the cities of the Levites: The Levites can buy back at any time their houses in the cities that belong to them. 33If someone buys a house from a Levite, that house in the Levites’ city will again belong to the Levites at the time of Jubilee. This is because houses in Levite cities belong to those from the tribe of Levi. The Israelites gave these cities to the Levites. 34Also, the fields and pastures around the Levite cities cannot be sold. They belong to the Levites forever.
Rules for Slave Owners
35“If anyone from your own country becomes too poor to support themselves, you must let them live with you like a visitor. 36Don’t charge them any interest on money you might loan to them. Respect your God and let those from your own country live with you. 37Don’t charge them interest on any money you lend them. And don’t try to make a profit from the food you sell them. 38I am the Lord your God. I brought you out of the land of Egypt to give the land of Canaan to you and to become your God.
39“If anyone from your own country becomes so poor that they must sell themselves to you, don’t make them work like slaves. 40They will be like hired workers and visitors with you until the year of Jubilee. 41Then they can leave you, take their children, and go back to their family. They can go back to the property of their ancestors, 42because they are my servants. I brought them out of slavery in Egypt. They must not become slaves again. 43You must not be a cruel master to them. You must respect your God.
44“About your men and women slaves: You may get men and women slaves from the other nations around you. 45Also, you may get children as slaves if they come from the families of the foreigners living in your land. These child slaves will belong to you. 46You may even pass these foreign slaves on to your children after you die so that they will belong to them. They will be your slaves forever. You may make slaves of these foreigners. But you must not be a cruel master over your own brothers, the Israelites.
47“Maybe a foreigner or visitor among you becomes rich. Or maybe someone from your own country becomes so poor that they sell themselves as slaves to a foreigner living among you or to a member of a foreigner’s family. 48These people have the right to be bought back and become free. Someone from their own country can buy them back. 49Or their uncle, their cousin, or one of their close relatives from their family can buy him back. Or if they get enough money, they can pay the money themselves and become free again.
50“You must count the years from the time they sold themselves to the foreigner up to the next year of Jubilee. Use that number to decide the price, because really the person only ‘hired’ them for a few years. 51If there are still many years before the year of Jubilee, the one sold must give back a large part of the price. It all depends on the number of years. 52If only a few years are left until the year of Jubilee, the one who was sold must pay a small part of the original price. 53But that person will live like a hired worker with the foreigner every year. Don’t let the foreigner be a cruel master over that person.
54“Those who sold themselves will become free, even if no one buys them back. At the year of Jubilee, they and their children will become free. 55This is because the Israelites are my servants. They are the servants who I brought out of slavery in Egypt. I am the Lord your God!
Currently Selected:
Leviticus 25: ERV
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
© 1987, 2004 Bible League International
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.
Currently Selected:
:
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
The Jubilee Bible 2000 (JUB) by Ransom Press International