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.”
Currently Selected:
Leviticus 25: GW
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
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
1Then the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying: 2#Ex 23:10; Lev 26:34–35Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a sabbath to the Lord. 3For six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruit, 4but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for the land, a sabbath for the Lord. You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard. 5#2Ki 19:29; Isa 37:30That which grows by itself from your harvest you shall not reap, nor gather the grapes of your unpruned vines, for it is a year of complete rest for the land. 6The sabbath produce of the land shall be food for you: for you, and for your male and female servants, and for your hired servant, and for your stranger who sojourns with you, 7and for your livestock, and for the wild animals in your land, shall all its increase be food.
The Year of Jubilee
Dt 15:1–11; Ex 21:2–11; Dt 15:12–18
8#Lev 23:15You shall count seven sabbath weeks of years, seven times seven years, and the time of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. 9#Lev 23:24; 23:27Then you shall sound the horn blasts on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall make the sound of the horn throughout all your land. 10#Jer 34:8; Ex 20:2You shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all the inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee to you, and each of you shall return to his possession, and every person shall return to his family. 11That fiftieth year will be a Jubilee for you. You shall neither sow nor reap that which grows by itself, nor gather the grapes of your unpruned vines. 12#Lev 25:6–7For it is the Jubilee. It shall be holy to you. You shall eat the produce of the field.
13#Lev 25:10In the Year of Jubilee you shall return to your property.
14#Lev 19:13; 25:17If you sell anything to your neighbor or buy anything from your neighbor, you shall not oppress one another. 15According to the number of years after the Jubilee you shall pay your neighbor, and according to the number of years of the crops he shall sell to you. 16According to the increase of years you shall increase the price, and according to the decrease of years you shall diminish the price of it. For he shall sell to you according to the number of years of crops. 17#Lev 19:14; 19:32You shall not therefore oppress one another, but you shall fear your God. For I am the Lord your God.
18#Dt 12:10; Jer 23:6Therefore you shall do My statutes, and keep My decrees, and do them, and you shall dwell securely in the land. 19#Lev 26:5; Ps 85:12The land shall yield its fruit, and you shall eat your fill and live securely in it. 20#Lev 25:4; Lk 12:29If you shall say, “What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we shall not sow nor gather in our crop?” 21#Dt 28:8then I will command My blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth produce for three years. 22#Lev 26:10; 2Ki 19:29You shall sow in the eighth year, and eat yet of old crops until the ninth year until its crops come in for you.
Redemption of Property
23#1Ch 29:15; Ps 39:12The land shall not be permanently sold, for the land is Mine. For you are foreigners and sojourners with Me. 24In all the land of your possession you shall grant a redemption for the land.
25#Ru 2:20; 3:9If your brother becomes poor and has sold some of his possession, then his nearest redeemer will come to redeem it, and buy back that which his brother sold. 26If the man has none to redeem it, but he himself is able to redeem it, 27then let him count the years since the sale and pay back the balance to the man to whom he sold it, so that he may return to his property. 28But if he is not able to restore it to himself, then that which he sold shall remain in the hand of him who has bought it until the Year of Jubilee, and in the Jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his possession.
29If a man sells a house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a year after it is sold, within a full year he may have the right to buy it back. 30If it is not redeemed within the time of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be given permanently to him who bought it throughout his generations. It shall not be returned in the Jubilee. 31But the houses of the villages that have no wall around them shall be counted as the fields of the land. They may be redeemed, and they shall be returned in the Jubilee.
32For the cities of the Levites, they may redeem at any time the houses in the cities that they possess. 33If a Levite purchases back the house that was sold in the city of his possession, then it shall be returned in the Jubilee. For the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel. 34#Lev 25:23; Ac 4:36–37But the fields of the land of their cities may not be sold, for they are their perpetual possession.
Helping the Poor
35#Dt 15:7–8; Ps 37:26If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, then you shall support him as if he were a foreigner or a sojourner, so that he may live with you. 36#Ex 22:25; Dt 23:19–20Take no usury or interest from him; but fear your God, so that your brother may live with you. 37You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor lend him your food for profit. 38#Lev 11:45; 22:32–33I 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.
The Law About Slavery
39#Ex 21:2; 1Ki 9:22; Lev 25:46If your brother who dwells near you becomes poor and sells himself to you, you shall not compel him to serve as a bondservant. 40But as a hired servant and as a sojourner he shall be with you. He shall serve you until the Year of Jubilee. 41#Lev 25:28; Ex 21:3And then he shall depart from you, both he and his children with him, and he shall return to his own family and to the possession of his fathers. 42#Lev 25:55; Ro 6:22For they are My servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. They shall not be sold as slaves. 43#Col 4:1; Ex 1:13–14You shall not rule over him with harshness, but you shall fear your God.
44Both your male and female slaves, whom you may have, they shall be bought from the nations that are around you. 45Moreover of the foreigners who sojourn among you and of their families who are with you, who were born in your land, you may also buy from them, and they may be your possession. 46You may take them as an inheritance for your children after you, for their possession. They shall be your slaves forever. But over your brothers, the children of Israel, you shall not rule over one another with rigor.
47If a sojourner or foreigner becomes rich by you, and your brother who dwells beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the foreigner or sojourner with you, or to a member of the stranger’s family, 48#Ne 5:5then after he is sold he may be redeemed again. One of his brothers may redeem him, 49#Lev 25:26or either his uncle or his cousin may redeem him, or any who is near of kin to him of his family may redeem him. Or if he is able, he may redeem himself. 50#Isa 16:14; 21:16He shall calculate with him who bought him from the year that he was sold to 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. 51If there are still many years left until the Jubilee, he shall pay the price proportionately for his redemption as some of the price that he was bought for. 52If there remain but a few years until the Year of Jubilee, then he shall calculate and pay the price proportionately for his redemption according to his years of service. 53As a yearly hired servant he shall be treated, and the other shall not rule harshly over him in your sight.
54#Ex 21:2–3If he is not redeemed in these years, then he shall go out in the Year of Jubilee, both he and his children with him. 55#Lev 25:42For to Me the children of Israel are servants. They are My servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
Currently Selected:
:
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
Military Bible Association