Leviticus 25
25
“The Land Will Observe a Sabbath to God”
1-7 God spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai: “Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them, When you enter the land which I am going to give you, the land will observe a Sabbath to God. Sow your fields, prune your vineyards, and take in your harvests for six years. But the seventh year the land will take a Sabbath of complete and total rest, a Sabbath to God; you will not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. Don’t reap what grows of itself; don’t harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land gets a year of complete and total rest. But you can eat from what the land volunteers during the Sabbath year—you and your men and women servants, your hired hands, and the foreigners who live in the country, and, of course, also your livestock and the wild animals in the land can eat from it. Whatever the land volunteers of itself can be eaten.
“The Fiftieth Year Is Your Jubilee Year”
8-12“Count off seven Sabbaths of years—seven times seven years: Seven Sabbaths of years adds up to forty-nine years. Then sound loud blasts on the ram’s horn on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement. Sound the ram’s horn all over the land. Sanctify the fiftieth year; make it a holy year. Proclaim freedom all over the land to everyone who lives in it—a Jubilee for you: Each person will go back to his family’s property and reunite with his extended family. The fiftieth year is your Jubilee year: Don’t sow; don’t reap what volunteers itself in the fields; don’t harvest the untended vines because it’s the Jubilee and a holy year for you. You’re permitted to eat from whatever volunteers itself in the fields.
13“In this year of Jubilee everyone returns home to his family property.
14-17“If you sell or buy property from one of your countrymen, don’t cheat him. Calculate the purchase price on the basis of the number of years since the Jubilee. He is obliged to set the sale price on the basis of the number of harvests remaining until the next Jubilee. The more years left, the more money; you can raise the price. But the fewer years left, the less money; decrease the price. What you are buying and selling in fact is the number of crops you’re going to harvest. Don’t cheat each other. Fear your God. I am God, your God.
18-22“Keep my decrees and observe my laws and you will live secure in the land. The land will yield its fruit; you will have all you can eat and will live safe and secure. Do I hear you ask, ‘What are we going to eat in the seventh year if we don’t plant or harvest?’ I assure you, I will send such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years. While you plant in the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and continue until the harvest of the ninth year comes in.
23-24“The land cannot be sold permanently because the land is mine and you are foreigners—you’re my tenants. You must provide for the right of redemption for any of the land that you own.
25-28“If one of your brothers becomes poor and has to sell any of his land, his nearest relative is to come and buy back what his brother sold. If a man has no one to redeem it but he later prospers and earns enough for its redemption, he is to calculate the value since he sold it and refund the balance to the man to whom he sold it; he can then go back to his own land. If he doesn’t get together enough money to repay him, what he sold remains in the possession of the buyer until the year of Jubilee. In the Jubilee it will be returned and he can go back and live on his land.
29-31“If a man sells a house in a walled city, he retains the right to buy it back for a full year after the sale. At any time during that year he can redeem it. But if it is not redeemed before the full year has passed, it becomes the permanent possession of the buyer and his descendants. It is not returned in the Jubilee. However, houses in unwalled villages are treated the same as fields. They can be redeemed and have to be returned at the Jubilee.
32-34“As to the Levitical cities, houses in the cities owned by the Levites are always subject to redemption. Levitical property is always redeemable if it is sold in a town that they hold and reverts to them in the Jubilee, because the houses in the towns of the Levites are their property among the People of Israel. The pastures belonging to their cities may not be sold; they are their permanent possession.
35-38“If one of your brothers becomes indigent and cannot support himself, help him, the same as you would a foreigner or a guest so that he can continue to live in your neighborhood. Don’t gouge him with interest charges; out of reverence for your God help your brother to continue to live with you in the neighborhood. Don’t take advantage of his plight by running up big interest charges on his loans, and don’t give him food for profit. I am your God who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.
39-43“If one of your brothers becomes indigent and has to sell himself to you, don’t make him work as a slave. Treat him as a hired hand or a guest among you. He will work for you until the Jubilee, after which he and his children are set free to go back to his clan and his ancestral land. Because the People of Israel are my servants whom I brought out of Egypt, they must never be sold as slaves. Don’t tyrannize them; fear your God.
44-46“The male and female slaves which you have are to come from the surrounding nations; you are permitted to buy slaves from them. You may also buy the children of foreign workers who are living among you temporarily and from their clans which are living among you and have been born in your land. They become your property. You may will them to your children as property and make them slaves for life. But you must not tyrannize your brother Israelites.
47-53“If a foreigner or temporary resident among you becomes rich and one of your brothers becomes poor and sells himself to the foreigner who lives among you or to a member of the foreigner’s clan, he still has the right of redemption after he has sold himself. One of his relatives may buy him back. An uncle or cousin or any close relative of his extended family may redeem him. Or, if he gets the money together, he can redeem himself. What happens then is that he and his owner count out the time from the year he sold himself to the year of Jubilee; the buy-back price is set according to the wages of a hired hand for that number of years. If many years remain before the Jubilee, he must pay back a larger share of his purchase price, but if only a few years remain until the Jubilee, he is to calculate his redemption price accordingly. He is to be treated as a man hired from year to year. You must make sure that his owner does not tyrannize him.
54-55“If he is not redeemed in any of these ways, he goes free in the year of Jubilee, he and his children, because the People of Israel are my servants, my servants whom I brought out of Egypt. I am God, your God.
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Leviticus 25: MSG
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
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.
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The Jubilee Bible 2000 (JUB) by Ransom Press International