Leviticus 25
25
The Year to Honor the LORD
1The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, 2“Tell the Israelites: When you come into the land I’m giving you, the land will celebrate a year to honor the Lord. 3Then, for six years you may plant crops in your fields, prune your vineyards, and gather what they produce. 4However, the seventh year will be a festival year for the land. It will be a year to honor the Lord. Don’t plant crops in your fields or prune your vineyards. 5Don’t harvest what grows by itself or harvest grapes from your vines. That year will be a festival for the land. 6Whatever the land produces during that year is for all of you to eat—for you, your male and female slaves, your hired workers, foreigners among you, 7your animals and the wild animals in your land. Everything the land produces will be yours to eat.
The Jubilee for the Land
8“Count seven of these years seven times for a total of 49 years. 9On the tenth day of the seventh month, the special day for the payment for sin, sound rams’ horns throughout the country. 10Set apart the fiftieth year as holy, and proclaim liberty to everyone living in the land. This is your jubilee year. Every slave will be freed in order to return to his property and to his family. 11That fiftieth year will be your jubilee year. Don’t plant or harvest what grows by itself or pick grapes from the vines in the land. 12The jubilee ⌞year⌟ will be holy to you. You will eat what the field itself produces.
13“In this jubilee year every slave will be freed in order to return to his property. 14If you sell anything to your neighbor or buy anything from him, don’t take advantage of him. 15When you buy property from your neighbor, take into account the number of years since the jubilee. Your neighbor must sell it to you taking into account the number of crops ⌞until the next jubilee⌟. 16If there are still many years ⌞until the jubilee⌟, you will pay more for it. If there are only a few years ⌞until the jubilee⌟, you will pay less for it because he is selling you only the number of crops. 17Never take advantage of each other. Fear your God, because I am the Lord your God.
18“Obey my laws, and carefully follow my rules. Then you will live securely in the land. 19The land will give you its products, and you will eat all you want and live there securely. 20You may ask, ‘What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or bring in our crops?’ 21I will give you my blessing in the sixth year so that the land will produce enough for three years. 22You will plant ⌞again⌟ in the eighth year but live on what the land already produced. You will eat it, even in the ninth year, until the land produces more.
23“Land must never be sold permanently, because the land is mine. To me you are strangers without permanent homes. 24People must always have the right to buy their property back. 25If your brother becomes poor and sells some of his property, then the one who can assume responsibility, his nearest relative, must buy back what he sold. 26If a man doesn’t have anyone to buy it back for him, but if he prospers and earns enough to buy it back himself, 27he must count the years from its sale. Then he will pay what is left to the man to whom he sold it, and it will be his property again. 28However, if he cannot earn enough to buy it back, what he sold stays in the hands of the buyer until the year of jubilee. In the jubilee it will be released, and he will own it again.
29“If anyone sells a home in a walled city, for one year after selling it he has the right to buy it back. He may buy it back only within that time. 30If he does not buy it back during that year, the house in the city belongs to the buyer for generations to come. It will not be released in the jubilee. 31However, houses in villages without walls are regarded as belonging to the fields of the land. They can be bought back. They will be released in the jubilee.
32“The Levites always have the right to buy back their property in the cities they own. 33If any Levite buys back ⌞a house⌟, in the jubilee the purchased house in the city will be released, because the houses in the Levite cities are their property among the Israelites. 34But a field that belongs to their cities must not be sold, because it is their permanent property.
The Jubilee for the People
35“If an Israelite becomes poor and cannot support himself, help him. He must live with you as a stranger without a permanent home. 36Don’t collect interest or make any profit from him. Fear your God by respecting other Israelites’ lives. 37Never collect any kind of interest on your money or on the food you give them. 38I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt to give you Canaan and to be your God.
39“If an Israelite becomes poor and sells himself to you, don’t work him like a slave. 40He will be like a hired worker or a visitor to you. He may work with you until the year of jubilee. 41Then you will release him and his children to go back to their family and the property of their ancestors. 42They are my servants. I brought them out of Egypt. They must never be sold as slaves. 43Do not treat them harshly. Fear your God.
44“You may have male and female slaves, but buy them from the nations around you. 45You may also buy them from the foreigners living among you and from their families born in your country. They will be your property. 46You may acquire them for yourselves and for your descendants as permanent property. You may work them as slaves. However, do not treat the Israelites harshly. They are your relatives.
47“Someone who is a foreigner without a permanent home among you may become rich, and your relative living with him may be poor. The poor Israelite may sell himself to that foreigner or a member of his family. 48After he has sold himself, he has the right to be bought back. One of his brothers may buy him back. 49His uncle, his cousin, or some other relative could also buy him back. If he becomes rich, he could buy his own freedom. 50Then he and his buyer must take into account the number of years from the year he was bought until the year of jubilee. His sale price will be adjusted based on the number of years he was with his buyer, like the wages of a hired worker. 51If there are many years left, he must refund from his purchase price an amount equal ⌞to those years⌟. 52If there are only a few years left until the year of jubilee, he must take them into account. He must refund from his purchase price an amount equal to those years. 53During those years he should serve his buyer as a hired worker. His buyer should not treat him harshly. 54If he cannot buy his freedom in these ways, he and his children will be released in the year of jubilee.
55“The Israelites belong to me as servants. They are my servants. I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”
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Leviticus 25: GW
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GOD'S WORD® Translation ©1995, 2003, 2013, 2014, 2019, 2020 by God's Word to the Nations Mission Society. All rights reserved.
Leviticus 25
25
The Sabbath Year
1 # ch. 26:46 The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, 2“Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into #Ex. 23:10, 11; [ch. 26:34, 35; 2 Chr. 36:21]the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. 3For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, 4but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. 5#[2 Kgs. 19:29]; Isa. 37:30You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. 6The Sabbath of the land#25:6 That is, the Sabbath produce of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves#25:6 Or servants and for your hired worker and the sojourner who lives with you, 7and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: #ver. 12all its yield shall be for food.
The Year of Jubilee
8“You shall count seven weeks#25:8 Or Sabbaths of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. 9Then you shall sound #[ch. 23:24; Isa. 27:13] the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. #ch. 23:24, 27On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. 10And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and #Isa. 61:1; Jer. 34:8, 13, 15, 17; Ezek. 46:17; [Isa. 61:2; 63:4; Luke 4:19] proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of #ch. 27:24; Num. 36:4you shall return to his clan. 11That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it #ver. 4, 5 you shall neither sow nor reap #[See ver. 5 above]what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. 12For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. #ver. 6, 7You may eat the produce of the field.#25:12 Or countryside
13 # [See ver. 10 above] “In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property. 14And if you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, #[ch. 19:33]you shall not wrong one another. 15#ch. 27:18, 23You shall pay your neighbor according to the number of years after the jubilee, and he shall sell to you according to the number of years for crops. 16If the years are many, you shall increase the price, and if the years are few, you shall reduce the price, for it is the number of the crops that he is selling to you. 17#ver. 36, 43; ch. 19:14, 32You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God.
18 # See ch. 18:4, 5 “Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then #ch. 26:5, 6; Deut. 12:10; [Prov. 1:33; Jer. 23:6; Ezek. 34:25, 28]you will dwell in the land securely. 19#Ps. 85:12; Ezek. 34:26, 27 The land will yield its fruit, and #ch. 26:5; Deut. 11:15; [Joel 2:19, 26] you will eat your fill #[See ver. 18 above]and dwell in it securely. 20And if you say, #[Matt. 6:25, 31; Luke 12:22, 29] ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if #ver. 4, 5we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ 21I will #Deut. 28:8command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. 22#[2 Kgs. 19:29] When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of #ch. 26:10the old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives.
Redemption of Property
23“The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for #Deut. 32:43; 2 Chr. 7:20; Ps. 85:1; Hos. 9:3; Joel 2:18; 3:2the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me. 24And in all the country you possess, you shall allow a redemption of the land.
25“If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his property, #Ruth 2:20; 3:9, 12; 4:4, 6; Jer. 32:7, 8then his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his brother has sold. 26If a man has no one to redeem it and then himself becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it, 27let #See ver. 50-52him calculate the years since he sold it and pay back the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and then return to his property. 28But if he does not have sufficient means to recover it, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of the buyer until the year of jubilee. In the jubilee it shall #ch. 27:21 be released, and #ver. 13, 41he shall return to his property.
29“If a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city, he may redeem it within a year of its sale. For a full year he shall have the right of redemption. 30If it is not redeemed within a full year, then the house in the walled city shall belong in perpetuity to the buyer, throughout his generations; #[See ver. 28 above]it shall not be released in the jubilee. 31But the houses of the villages that have no wall around them shall be classified with the fields of the land. They may be redeemed, and #[See ver. 28 above]they shall be released in the jubilee. 32As for #[Num. 35:2]; See Josh. 21:2-40the cities of the Levites, the Levites may redeem at any time the houses in the cities they possess. 33And if one of the Levites exercises his right of redemption, then the house that was sold in a city they possess shall be released in the jubilee. For the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the people of Israel. 34But the fields #Num. 35:2; 1 Chr. 13:2; [Acts 4:36, 37]; See Josh. 21:11-42; 1 Chr. 6:55-81of pastureland belonging to their cities may not be sold, for that is their possession forever.
Kindness for Poor Brothers
35“If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, #Deut. 15:7, 8; [Ps. 41:1; 112:5, 9; Prov. 14:31; Acts 11:29; 1 John 3:17]you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. 36#See Ex. 22:25 Take no interest from him or profit, but #ver. 17, 43; Neh. 5:9; [Mal. 3:5]fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. 37#[See ver. 36 above]You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. 38#ver. 42, 55; ch. 22:32, 33; 26:13I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.
39 #
Ex. 21:2; Deut. 15:12; 1 Kgs. 9:22; 2 Kgs. 4:1; Neh. 5:5 “If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: 40he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. 41#[See ver. 28 above] Then he shall go out from you, #[Ex. 21:3] he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return #ver. 13, 28to the possession of his fathers. 42For they are #ver. 55; [Rom. 6:22; 1 Cor. 7:23]my servants,#25:42 Hebrew slaves whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. 43#[Eph. 6:9; Col. 4:1] You shall not rule over him #Ex. 1:13, 14; Ezek. 34:4 ruthlessly but #ver. 17, 36shall fear your God. 44As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. 45#Isa. 14:1, 2; 56:3, 6You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. 46You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel #Ex. 1:13, 14; Ezek. 34:4you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.
Redeeming a Poor Man
47“If a stranger or sojourner with you becomes rich, and #ver. 25, 35, 39your brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner with you or to a member of the stranger’s clan, 48then after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him, 49or his uncle or his cousin may #See Neh. 5:1-5 redeem him, or a close relative from his clan may redeem him. Or if he #ver. 26, 47grows rich he may redeem himself. 50He shall calculate with his buyer from the year when he sold himself to him until the year of jubilee, and the price of his sale shall vary with the number of years. The time he was with his owner shall be #Job 7:1; Isa. 16:14; 21:16rated as the time of a hired worker. 51If there are still many years left, he shall pay proportionately for his redemption some of his sale price. 52If there remain but a few years until the year of jubilee, he shall calculate and pay for his redemption in proportion to his years of service. 53He shall treat him as a worker hired year by year. #[See ver. 46 above]He shall not rule ruthlessly over him in your sight. 54And if he is not redeemed by these means, then #ver. 41; Ex. 21:2, 3he and his children with him shall be released in the year of jubilee. 55For it is #ver. 42to me that the people of Israel are servants.#25:55 Or slaves They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
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