Leviticus 25
1 The LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai:
2 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them: ‘When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land shall observe a Sabbath to the LORD.
3 For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather its produce.
4 But in the seventh year the land shall have a complete Sabbath of rest, a Sabbath to the LORD: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard.
5 You shall not reap what grows on its own after your harvest, or gather grapes from your unpruned vines; it shall be a Sabbath year of rest for the land.
6 The Sabbath produce of the land shall be food for you: for you, your male and female servants, your hired worker, and the foreign resident living with you,
7 and for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. All that the land produces shall serve as food.
8 Count seven weeks of years, seven years seven times. The days of those seven weeks of years will amount to forty-nine years.
9 In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, have the trumpet of acclamation sounded. On the Day of Atonement, have the trumpet sounded throughout your land.
10 You shall consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you: each of you shall return to your own property, and each to your family.
11 The fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee for you: do not sow, do not reap what grows on its own, or gather grapes from the unpruned vines.’”
12 “‘For it is a Jubilee; it shall be holy for you. You shall eat what the field produces.
13 In this year of Jubilee, each of you shall return to your own property.
14 When you sell anything to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, do not wrong one another.
15 You shall buy from your neighbor according to the number of years since the Jubilee, and he shall sell to you according to the number of harvests.
16 The more years there are, the higher you shall set the price; the fewer years there are, the lower you shall set it, for what he is selling you is a number of harvests.
17 Do not wrong one another. Fear your God, for I am the LORD your God.
18 Carry out my decrees, keep my laws, and obey them; then you will live securely in the land.
19 The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live securely in it.
20 Perhaps you will ask, ‘What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not sow or gather our harvest?’
21 I will command my blessing for you in the sixth year, and it will produce a harvest sufficient for three years.
22 You will sow in the eighth year and eat from the old harvest; until the ninth year, until the land’s harvest comes in, you will eat from the old.’”
23 “‘The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine; you are resident foreigners and temporary residents with me.
24 Throughout all the land you possess, you must grant the right to redeem the land.
25 If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his property, his nearest relative who has the right to redeem it shall come and redeem what his brother sold.
26 If a man has no relative to redeem it, but later gains enough to redeem it himself,
27 he shall calculate the years since the sale, repay the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and return to his property.
28 But if he cannot afford to repay him, what he sold shall remain in the buyer’s hands until the year of Jubilee. It shall be released in the Jubilee, and he shall return to his property.
29 If a man sells a house in a walled city, he may redeem it until a full year has passed since the sale; his right to redeem it lasts one year.
30 If it is not redeemed by the end of a full year, the house in the walled city shall permanently belong to its buyer and his descendants; it shall not be released in the Jubilee.
31 But houses in villages without surrounding walls shall be considered like open fields: they may be redeemed, and they shall be released in the Jubilee.
32 As for the cities of the Levites, the houses in the cities they possess shall always be redeemable for the Levites.
33 If anyone redeems a house from the Levites, the sold house in the city they possess shall be released in the Jubilee, because the houses in the Levite cities are their possession among the Israelites.’”
34 “‘But the pastureland belonging to their cities must not be sold, because it is their permanent possession.
35 If your brother becomes poor and cannot support himself while living with you, support him. Let him live with you as a resident foreigner and temporary resident.
36 Do not charge him interest or profit. Fear your God, so that your brother may live with you.
37 Do not lend him your money at interest or give him your food for profit.
38 I 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.
39 If your brother becomes poor while living with you and sells himself to you, do not subject him to slave labor.
40 He shall be with you as a hired worker and a temporary resident; he shall serve you until the year of Jubilee.
41 Then he shall leave you, he and his children with him, and return to his family and to the property of his ancestors.
42 For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they must not be sold as slaves are sold.
43 Do not rule over him harshly; fear your God.
44 As for the male and female slaves you may have, you may buy them from the nations around you.’”
45 “‘You may also buy them from among the children of the temporary residents living with you, and from their families who are with you, born in your land; they shall become your property.
46 You may leave them as an inheritance to your children after you, for them to possess as property. You may make them serve you forever. But as for your fellow Israelites, no one shall rule harshly over another.
47 If a resident foreigner or temporary resident living with you prospers, while your brother becomes poor beside him, and your brother sells himself to that foreign resident or to a descendant of his family,
48 he shall have the right to be redeemed after he has been sold. One of his brothers may redeem him,
49 or his uncle, or his uncle’s son, or a close relative from his family may redeem him. Or, if he himself gains the means, he may redeem himself.
50 He shall reckon with his buyer from the year he sold himself to him until the year of Jubilee. The price of his sale shall be calculated according to the number of years, as if he were a hired worker with him.
51 If many years remain, he shall repay his redemption in proportion to them, from the price he was bought for.
52 If only a few years remain until the year of Jubilee, he shall calculate the amount and repay his redemption according to those years.
53 He shall be with his buyer as a hired worker year by year. The buyer must not rule harshly over him while you look on.
54 If he is not redeemed by these means, he shall go free in the year of Jubilee, he and his children with him.
55 For the Israelites are servants to me; they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.’”
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