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
1And the LORD spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying, 2Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye 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 fruits thereof; 4but in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath unto the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. 5That which groweth of itself of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, and the grapes of thy undressed vine thou shalt not gather: it shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. 6And the sabbath of the land shall be for food for you; for thee, and for thy servant and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant and for thy stranger that sojourn with thee; 7and for thy cattle, and for the beasts that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be for food.
8And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and there shall be unto thee the days of seven sabbaths of years, even forty and nine years. 9Then shalt thou send abroad the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month; in the day of atonement shall ye send abroad the trumpet throughout all your land. 10And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. 11A jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of the undressed vines. 12For it is a jubile; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field. 13In this year of jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession. 14And if thou sell aught unto thy neighbour, or buy of thy neighbour's hand, ye shall not wrong one another: 15according to the number of years after the jubile thou shalt buy of thy neighbour, and according unto the number of years of the crops he shall sell unto thee. 16According to the multitude of the years thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of the years thou shalt diminish the price of it; for the number of the crops doth he sell unto thee. 17And ye shall not wrong one another; but thou shalt fear thy God: for I am the LORD your God. 18Wherefore ye shall do my statutes, and keep my judgements 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 increase: 21then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for the three years. 22And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat of the fruits, the old store; until the ninth year, until her fruits come in, ye shall eat the old store.
23And the land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is mine: for ye are strangers and sojourners with me. 24And in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land. 25If thy brother be waxen poor, and sell some of his possession, then shall his kinsman that is next unto him come, and shall redeem that which his brother hath sold. 26And if a man have no one to redeem it, and he be waxen rich and find sufficient to redeem it; 27then let him count the years of the sale thereof, and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold it; and he shall return unto his possession. 28But if he be not able to get it back for himself, then that which he hath sold shall remain in the hand of him that hath bought it until the year of jubile: and in the jubile it shall go out, and he shall return unto his possession. 29And if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; for a full year shall he have the right of redemption. 30And if it be not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be made sure in perpetuity to him that bought it, throughout his generations: it shall not go out in the jubile. 31But the houses of the villages which have no wall round about them shall be reckoned with the fields of the country: they may be redeemed, and they shall go out in the jubile. 32Nevertheless the cities of the Levites, the houses of the cities of their possession, may the Levites redeem at any time. 33And if one of the Levites redeem, then the house that was sold, and the city of his possession, shall go out in the jubile: for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children 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 be waxen poor, and his hand fail with thee; then thou shalt uphold him: as a stranger and a sojourner shall he live with thee. 36Take thou no usury of him or increase; but fear thy God: that thy brother may live with thee. 37Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor give him thy victuals for increase. 38I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, to be your God.
39And if thy brother be waxen poor with thee, and sell himself unto thee; thou shalt not make him to serve as a bondservant: 40as an hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee; he shall serve with thee unto the year of jubile: 41then shall he go out from thee, he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return. 42For they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen. 43Thou shalt not rule over him with rigour; but shalt fear thy God. 44And as for thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have; of the nations that are round about you, of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. 45Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they have begotten in your land: and they shall be your possession. 46And ye shall make them an inheritance for your children after you, to hold for a possession; of them shall ye take your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel ye shall not rule, one over another, with rigour. 47And if a stranger or sojourner with thee be waxen rich, and thy brother be waxen poor beside him, and sell himself unto the stranger or sojourner with thee, or to the stock of the stranger's family: 48after that he is sold he may be redeemed; one of his brethren may redeem him: 49or his uncle, or his uncle's son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he be waxen rich, he may redeem himself. 50And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he sold himself to him unto the year of jubile: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years; according to the time of an hired servant shall he be with him. 51If there be yet many years, according unto them he shall give back 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 jubile, then he shall reckon with him; according unto his years shall he give back the price of his redemption. 53As a servant hired year by year shall he be with him: he shall not rule with rigour over him in thy sight. 54And if he be not redeemed by these means, then he shall go out in the year of jubile, he, and his children with him. 55For unto me the children of Israel are servants; they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
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