Leviticus 25
25
Sabbath Years and Jubilee
1The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai: 2“Speak to the Israelites and tell them: When you enter the land I am giving you, the land will observe a Sabbath to the Lord. 3You may sow your field for six years, and you may prune your vineyard and gather its produce for six years. 4But there will be a Sabbath of complete rest # Lv 16:31 for the land in the seventh year, a Sabbath to the Lord: you are not to sow your field or prune your vineyard. 5You are not to reap what grows by itself from your crop, or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. It must be a year of complete rest for the land. 6Whatever the land produces during the Sabbath year can be food for you — for yourself, your male or female slave, and the hired hand or foreigner who stays with you. 7All of its growth may serve as food for your livestock and the wild animals in your land.
8“You are to count seven sabbatical years, seven times seven years, so that the time period of the seven sabbatical years amounts to 49. 9Then you are to sound a trumpet loudly in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month; you will sound it throughout your land on the Day of Atonement. # Lv 23:27 10You are to consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim freedom in the land for all its inhabitants. It will be your Jubilee, # Lv 27:17-24; Nm 36:4; Dt 15:1 when each of you is to return to his property and each of you to his clan. 11The fiftieth year will be your Jubilee; you are not to sow, reap what grows by itself, or harvest its untended vines. 12It is to be holy to you because it is the Jubilee; you may only eat its produce directly from the field.
13“In this Year of Jubilee, each of you will return to his property. 14If you make a sale to your neighbor or a purchase from him, do not cheat # Dt 23:16 one another. 15You are to make the purchase from your neighbor based on the number of years since the last Jubilee. He is to sell to you based on the number of remaining harvest years. 16You are to increase its price in proportion to a greater amount of years, and decrease its price in proportion to a lesser amount of years, because what he is selling to you is a number of harvests. 17You are not to cheat one another, but fear your God, for I am Yahweh your God.
18“You are to keep My statutes and ordinances and carefully observe them, so that you may live securely in the land. # Lv 18:4-5,26; 19:37; 20:8,22; 26:3-5 19Then the land will yield its fruit, so that you can eat, be satisfied, and live securely in the land. 20If you wonder: ‘What will we eat in the seventh year if we don’t sow or gather our produce? ’ 21I will appoint My blessing for you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. 22When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating from the previous harvest. You will be eating this until the ninth year when its harvest comes in.
23“The land is not to be permanently sold because it is Mine, and you are only foreigners and temporary residents on My land. # Lit residents with Me # 1Ch 29:15; Heb 11:13 24You are to allow the redemption of any land you occupy. 25If your brother becomes destitute and sells part of his property, his nearest relative may come and redeem what his brother has sold. 26If a man has no family redeemer, but he prospers # Lit but his hand reaches and obtains enough to redeem his land, 27he may calculate the years since its sale, repay the balance to the man he sold it to, and return to his property. 28But if he cannot obtain enough to repay him, what he sold will remain in the possession of its purchaser until the Year of Jubilee. It is to be released at the Jubilee, so that he may return to his property.
29“If a man sells a residence in a walled city, his right of redemption will last until a year has passed after its sale; his right of redemption will last a year. 30If it is not redeemed by the end of a full year, then the house in the walled city is permanently transferred to its purchaser throughout his generations. It is not to be released on the Jubilee. 31But houses in villages that have no walls around them are to be classified as open fields. The right to redeem such houses stays in effect, and they are to be released at the Jubilee.
32“Concerning the Levitical cities, # Nm 35:1-8; Dt 18:1-2; 19:2-9; Jos 21; 1Ch 6:54-81 the Levites always have the right to redeem houses in the cities they possess. 33Whatever property one of the Levites can redeem # Hb obscure — a house sold in a city they possess — must be released at the Jubilee, because the houses in the Levitical cities are their possession among the Israelites. 34The open pastureland around their cities may not be sold, for it is their permanent possession.
35“If your brother becomes destitute and cannot sustain himself among # Lit and his hand falters with you, you are to support him as a foreigner or temporary resident, so that he can continue to live among you. 36Do not profit or take interest from him, # Ex 22:25; Dt 23:19-20; Ezk 22:12 but fear your God and let your brother live among you. 37You are not to lend him your silver with interest or sell him your food for profit. 38I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.
39“If your brother among you becomes destitute and sells himself to you, # 2Kg 4:1; Neh 5:5; Is 50:1; Mt 18:25 you must not force him to do slave labor. 40Let him stay with you as a hired hand or temporary resident; he may work for you until the Year of Jubilee. 41Then he and his children are to be released from you, and he may return to his clan and his ancestral property. # Ex 21:3-6 42They are not to be sold as slaves, # Lit sold with a sale of a slave because they are My slaves that I brought out of the land of Egypt. 43You are not to rule over them harshly # Ex 1:13-14 but fear your God. 44Your male and female slaves are to be from the nations around you; you may purchase male and female slaves. 45You may also purchase them from the foreigners staying with you, or from their families living among you — those born in your land. These may become your property. 46You may leave them to your sons after you to inherit as property; you can make them slaves for life. But concerning your brothers, the Israelites, you must not rule over one another harshly.
47“If a foreigner or temporary resident living among you prospers, but your brother living near him becomes destitute and sells himself to the foreigner living among you, or to a member of the foreigner’s clan, 48he has the right of redemption after he has been sold. One of his brothers may redeem him. 49His uncle or cousin may redeem him, or any of his close relatives from his clan may redeem him. If he prospers, he may redeem himself. 50The one who purchased him is to calculate the time from the year he sold himself to him until the Year of Jubilee. The price of his sale will be determined by the number of years. It will be set for him like the daily wages of a hired hand. 51If many years are still left, he must pay his redemption price in proportion to them based on his purchase price. 52If only a few years remain until the Year of Jubilee, he will calculate and pay the price of his redemption in proportion to his remaining years. 53He will stay with him like a man hired year by year. A foreign owner is not to rule over him harshly in your sight. 54If he is not redeemed in any of these ways, he and his children are to be released at the Year of Jubilee. 55For the Israelites are My slaves. # Ex 4:10 They are My slaves that I brought out of the land of Egypt; I am Yahweh your God.
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Leviticus 25: HCSB
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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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