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
1And Jehovah spoke to Moses in mount Sinai, saying, 2Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them, When ye come into the land that I will give you, the land shall celebrate a sabbath to Jehovah. 3Six years shalt thou sow thy field, and six years shalt thou prune thy vineyard, and gather in the produce thereof, 4but in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest for the land, a sabbath to Jehovah. Thy field shalt thou not sow, and thy vineyard shalt thou not prune. 5That which springeth up from the scattered seed of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, and the grapes of thine undressed vines thou shalt not gather: a year of rest shall it be for the land. 6And the sabbath of the land shall be for food for you, for thee, and for thy bondman, and for thy handmaid, and for thy hired servant, and for him that dwelleth as a sojourner with thee, and for thy cattle, 7and for the beasts that are in thy land: all the produce thereof shall be for food.
8And thou shalt count seven sabbaths of years, seven times seven years; so that the days of the seven sabbaths of years be unto thee forty-nine years. 9Then shalt thou cause the loud sound of the trumpet to go forth in the seventh month, on the tenth of the month; on the day of atonement shall ye cause the trumpet to go forth throughout your land. 10And ye shall hallow the year of the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty in the land unto all the inhabitants thereof; a year of jubilee shall it be unto you, and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family; 11a year of jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap its aftergrowth, nor gather the fruit of its undressed vines. 12For it is the jubilee; it shall be holy unto you; out of the field shall ye eat its produce. 13In this year of the jubilee ye shall return every man unto his possession. 14And if ye sell ought unto your neighbour, or buy of your neighbour's hand, ye shall not overreach one another. 15According to the number of years since the jubilee, thou shalt buy of thy neighbour; according to the number of years of the produce, he shall sell unto thee. 16According to the greater number of the years, thou shalt increase the price thereof; and according to the fewness of years, thou shalt diminish the price of it; for it is the number of crops that he selleth unto thee. 17And ye shall not oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy God#GodHebrew: Elohim for I am Jehovah your God#GodHebrew: Elohim 18And ye shall do my statutes, and observe mine ordinances and do them: thus shall ye dwell in your land securely. 19And the land shall yield its fruit, and ye shall eat and be satisfied, and dwell therein securely. 20And if ye say, What shall we eat in the seventh year? behold, we may not sow, nor gather in our produce; 21then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, that it may bring forth produce for three years; 22and ye shall sow in the eighth year, and ye shall eat of the old fruit until the ninth year; until her produce come in, ye shall eat the old.
23And the land shall not be sold for ever; 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 grow poor, and sell of his possession, then shall his redeemer, his nearest relation, come and redeem that which his brother sold. 26And if the man have no one having right of redemption, and his hand have acquired and found what sufficeth for its redemption, 27then shall he reckon the years since the sale thereof, and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold it; and so return unto his possession. 28And if his hand have not found what sufficeth for him to restore it to him, then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of the purchaser, until the year of jubilee; and in the jubilee it shall go out, and he shall return unto his possession. 29And if any one sell a dwelling-house in a walled city, then he shall have the right of redemption up to the end of the year of the sale thereof; for a full year shall he have the right of redemption. 30But if it be not redeemed until a whole year is complete, then the house that is in the walled city shall be established for ever to him that bought it, throughout his generations: it shall not go out in the jubilee. 31But the houses in villages that have no wall round about them shall be reckoned as the fields of the country: they may be redeemed, and they shall go out in the jubilee. 32But as to the cities of the Levites, the houses in the cities of their possession, the Levites shall have a perpetual right of redemption. 33And if any one redeem from one of the Levites, then the house that was sold, in the city of his possession, shall go out in the jubilee; for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel. 34And the field of the suburbs of their cities shall not be sold; for it is their perpetual possession. 35And if thy brother grow poor, and he be fallen into decay beside thee, then thou shalt relieve him, be he stranger or sojourner, that he may live beside thee. 36Thou shalt take no usury nor increase of him; and thou shalt fear thy God#GodHebrew: Elohim that thy brother may live beside thee. 37Thy money shalt thou not give him upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase. 38I am Jehovah your God#GodHebrew: Elohim who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, to be your God#GodHebrew: Elohim
39And if thy brother grow poor beside thee, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant: 40as a hired servant, as a sojourner, shall he be with thee; until the year of jubilee shall he serve thee. 41Then shall he depart 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 bondmen, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as men sell bondmen. 43Thou shalt not rule over him with rigour; and thou shalt fear thy God#GodHebrew: Elohim 44And as for thy bondman and thy handmaid whom thou shalt have — of the nations that are round about you, of them shall ye buy bondmen and handmaids. 45Moreover of the children of them that dwell as sojourners with you, of them may ye buy, and of their family that is with you, which they beget in your land, and they shall be your possession. 46And ye shall leave them as an inheritance to your children after you, to inherit them as a possession: these may ye make your bondmen for ever; but as for your brethren, the children of Israel, ye shall not rule over one another with rigour. 47And if a stranger or sojourner become wealthy beside thee, and thy brother beside him grow poor, and sell himself unto the stranger, who is settled by thee, or to a scion of the stranger's family, 48after that he is sold there shall be right of redemption for him; one of his brethren may redeem him. 49Either his uncle or his uncle's son may redeem him, or one of his next relations of his family may redeem him; or if his means be sufficient, 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 the years, according to the days of a hired servant shall he be with him. 51If there are yet many years, according unto them shall he return his redemption money out of the money that he was bought for; 52and if there remain but few years unto the year of jubilee, then he shall reckon with him; according unto his remaining years of service shall he give him back his redemption money. 53As a hired servant shall he be with him year by year; his master shall not rule with rigour over him before thine eyes. 54And if he be not redeemed in this manner, then he shall go out in the year of jubilee, he and his children with him. 55For the children of Israel are servants unto me; they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I am Jehovah your God#GodHebrew: Elohim.
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First published in 1890. This edition is maintained by the British and Foreign Bible Society.