Leviticus 25
1 And the LORD spoke to Moses in mount Sinai, saying,
Yahweh said to Moses/me on Sinai Mountain,
2 Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, When you come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath to the LORD.
“Tell the Israelis [that I, Yahweh, say this]: When you enter the land that I am about to give you, every seventh year you must honor me by [not planting any seeds. You will be] allowing the ground to rest.
3 Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof;
For six years you are to plant seeds in your fields and prune your grapevines and harvest the crops.
4 But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest to the land, a sabbath for the LORD: you shall neither sow your field, nor prune your vineyard.
But the seventh/next year you must [dedicate] to me, and allow your fields to rest. Do not plant seeds in your fields or prune your grapevines [during that year].
5 That which grows of its own accord of your harvest you shall not reap, neither gather the grapes of your vine undressed: for it is a year of rest to the land.
Do not reap [the grain] that grows in your fields without having been planted, or harvest the grapes that grow [without the vines being pruned]; you must allow the land to rest for that one year.
6 And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for you, and for your servant, and for your maid, and for your hired servant, and for your stranger that sojourns with you.
But you are permitted to eat whatever crops grow by themselves during that year without having been planted. You and your male and female servants, and workers whom you have hired, and people who are living among you temporarily are permitted to eat it.
7 And for your cattle, and for the beast that are in your land, shall all the increase thereof be meat.
Also, [during that year] your livestock and the wild animals in your land are permitted to eat it.’
8 And you shall number seven sabbaths of years to you, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to you forty and nine years.
‘Also, after every 49 years has ended, you must do this: (On the tenth day of the seventh month/At the end of September) [of the next/50th year], blow trumpets throughout the country, to declare that it will be a day on which you request that I forgive you for the sins that you have committed.
9 Then shall you cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall you make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.
10 And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee to you; and you shall return every man to his possession, and you shall return every man to his family.
Set apart that year, and proclaim that throughout the country, it will be a year of restoring the land and freeing people: All the people [who sold their property] will receive back the property that they previously owned, and slaves must be (freed/allowed to return to [their property and] their families).
11 A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be to you: you shall not sow, neither reap that which grows of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of your vine undressed.
That year will be a Year of Celebration; [during that year] do not plant anything, and do not harvest [in the usual way] the grain/wheat that grows without having been planted, or the grapes that grow without the vines being pruned.
12 For it is the jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat the increase thereof out of the field.
It will be a Year of Celebration, so eat [only] what grows in the fields (by itself/without any work being done to produce anything).
13 In the year of this jubilee you shall return every man to his possession.
‘In that Year of Celebration, everyone must return to their own property.
14 And if you sell something to your neighbor, or buy something of your neighbor’s hand, you shall not oppress one another:
‘If you sell some of your land to a fellow Israeli or if you buy some land from one of them, you must treat that person fairly:
15 According to the number of years after the jubilee you shall buy of your neighbor, and according to the number of years of the fruits he shall sell to you:
If you buy land, the price that you will pay will depend on the number of years there will be until the next Year of Celebration. If someone sells land to you, he will charge a price that is determined by the number of years until the next Year of Celebration.
16 According to the multitude of years you shall increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of years you shall diminish the price of it: for according to the number of the years of the fruits does he sell to you.
If there will be many years before the next Year of Celebration, the price will be higher; if there will be only a few years until the next Year of Celebration, the price will be lower. [You could say that] what he is really selling you is the number of crops [which you can harvest before the next Year of Celebration].
17 You shall not therefore oppress one another; but you shall fear your God: for I am the LORD your God.
Do not cheat each other; instead, revere me. I, Yahweh your God, [am the one who am commanding this].
18 Why you shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and you shall dwell in the land in safety.
‘Obey all my laws [DOU] carefully. If you do that, you will continue to live safely in your country [DOU].
19 And the land shall yield her fruit, and you shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety.
And crops will grow well on the land, and you will have plenty to eat.
20 And if you shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase:
But you may ask, “If we do not plant or harvest our crops during the seventh year, what will we have to eat?”
21 Then I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years.
[My answer is that] I will bless you very much during the sixth/previous year, with the result that during that year there will be enough crops to provide food for you for three years!
22 And you shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year; until her fruits come in you shall eat of the old store.
Then, after you plant seed during the eighth/next year [and wait for the crops to grow], you will eat the food grown in the sixth year, and continue to eat it until more food is harvested in the ninth year!
23 The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine, for you are strangers and sojourners with me.
‘You must not sell any of your land to belong to someone else permanently, because the land [is not yours, it]; is really mine, and you are only living on it temporarily and (farming/taking care of) it for me.
24 And in all the land of your possession you shall grant a redemption for the land.
Throughout the country that you will possess, you must remember that if someone sells some of his land to you, he is permitted to buy it back from you [if he wants to].
25 If your brother be waxen poor, and has sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold.
‘So, if one of your fellow Israelis becomes poor and sells some of his property [to obtain some money], the person who is most closely related to him is permitted to come and buy that land for him.
26 And if the man have none to redeem it, and himself be able to redeem it;
However, if a man has no one to buy the land for him, and he himself prospers again and saves enough money to buy that land back,
27 Then let him count the years of the sale thereof, and restore the remainder to the man to whom he sold it; that he may return to his possession.
he must calculate how many years there will be until the next Year of Celebration. Then he must pay to the man who bought the land the money that he would have earned by continuing to grow crops on that land for those years.
28 But if he be not able to restore it to him, then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of him that has bought it until the year of jubilee: and in the jubilee it shall go out, and he shall return to his possession.
But if the original owner does not have any money to buy the land that he sold, it will continue to belong to the man who bought it, until the next Year of Celebration. In that year it must be returned to its original owner, and he will be able to live on it again.
29 And if a man sell 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.
‘If someone who lives in a city that has a wall around it sells a house there, during the next year he will be permitted to buy it from the man who bought it.
30 And if it be not redeemed within the space of a full year, 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.
If he does not buy it during that year, it will belong permanently to the man who bought it and to his descendants. It must not be returned to the original owner in the Year of Celebration.
31 But 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.
But houses that are in villages that do not have walls around them are considered to be as though they are in a field. So if someone sells one of those houses, he is permitted to buy it back at any time. And [if he does not buy it], it must be returned to him in the Year of Celebration.
32 Notwithstanding the cities of the Levites, and the houses of the cities of their possession, may the Levites redeem at any time.
‘If any descendants of Levi sell their houses in the towns in which they live, they are permitted to buy them back at any time.
33 And if a man purchase of 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 children of Israel.
And because the houses in their towns are on land that [was given to them by] other Israelis, that land will become theirs again in the Year of Celebration [if they do not buy it back before then].
34 But the field of the suburbs of their cities may not be sold; for it is their perpetual possession.
But the pastureland near their towns must not be sold. It must belong to the original owners permanently/forever.
35 And if your brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with you; then you shall relieve him: yes, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with you.
‘If one of your fellow Israelis becomes poor and is unable to buy what he needs [IDM], others of you must help him like you would help a foreigner who is living among you [DOU] temporarily.
36 Take you no usury of him, or increase: but fear your God; that your brother may live with you.
[If you lend money to him], do not charge any kind of interest [DOU]. Instead, [show by what you do that you] revere me, your God, and help that man, in order that he will be able to continue to live among you.
37 You shall not give him your money on usury, nor lend him your victuals for increase.
If you lend him money, do not charge interest; and if you sell food to him, [charge him only what you paid for it]; do not get a profit from it.
38 I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.
[Do not forget that] I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of Egypt to be your God and to give you the land of Canaan, [and I did not charge you for doing that].
39 And if your brother that dwells by you be waxen poor, and be sold to you; you shall not compel him to serve as a bondservant:
‘If one of your fellow Israelis becomes poor and sells himself to you, do not force him to work like a slave.
40 But as an hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with you, and shall serve you to the year of jubilee.
Treat him like you treat workers that you hire or like someone who is living on your land temporarily. But he must work for you [only] until the Year of Celebration.
41 And then shall he depart from you, both he and his children with him, and shall return to his own family, and to the possession of his fathers shall he return.
During that year, you must free him, and he will go back to his family and to the property that his ancestors owned.
42 For they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as slaves.
[It is as though] you Israelis are my slaves/servants, whom I [freed from being slaves] in Egypt. So none of you should be sold to become slaves.
43 You shall not rule over him with rigor; but shall fear your God.
And do not treat the Israelis whom you buy cruelly; instead, revere me, your God.
44 Both your slaves, and your bondmaids, which you shall have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall you buy slaves and bondmaids.
‘If you want to have slaves, you are permitted to buy them from nearby countries.
45 Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall you buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession.
You are also permitted to buy some of the foreigners who are living among you, and members of their clans that were born in your country. Then you will own them.
46 And you shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your slaves for ever: but over your brothers the children of Israel, you shall not rule one over another with rigor.
They will be your slaves for the remaining years of your life, and after you die, it is permitted for your children to own them. But you must not act in brutal ways toward your fellow Israelis.
47 And if a sojourner or stranger wax rich by you, and your brother that dwells by him wax poor, and sell himself to the stranger or sojourner by you, or to the stock of the stranger’s family:
‘If a foreigner who is living among you [DOU] becomes rich, and if one of your fellow Israelis becomes poor and sells himself to that foreigner or to a member of his clan/family,
48 After that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brothers may redeem him:
it is permitted for someone to pay for him to be freed. It is permitted for one of his relatives to pay for him to be released:
49 Either his uncle, or his uncle’s son, may redeem him, or any that is near of kin to him of his family may redeem him; or if he be able, he may redeem himself.
An uncle or a cousin or another relative in his clan may pay for him to be released. Or, if he prospers [and gets enough money], he is permitted to pay for his own release.
50 And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold to him to the year of jubilee: and the price of his sale shall be according to the number of years, according to the time of an hired servant shall it be with him.
The man who wants to pay for his own release must count the number of years until the next Year of Celebration. The price he pays to the man who bought him will depend on the pay that would be given to a hired worker for that number of years.
51 If there be yet many years behind, according to them he shall give again the price of his redemption out of the money that he was bought for.
If there are a lot of years that remain until the Year of Celebration, he must pay for his release a larger amount of the money.
52 And if there remain but few years to the year of jubilee, then he shall count with him, and according to his years shall he give him again the price of his redemption.
If there are only a few years that remain until the Year of Celebration, he must pay a smaller amount to be released.
53 And as a yearly hired servant shall he be with him: and the other shall not rule with rigor over him in your sight.
During the years that he is working for the man who bought him, the man who bought him must treat him like he would treat a hired worker, and all of you must make sure that his owner does not treat him cruelly.
54 And if he be not redeemed in these years, then he shall go out in the year of jubilee, both he, and his children with him.
‘And even if a fellow Israeli who has sold himself to a rich man is not able to pay for himself to be freed by any of these ways, he and his children must be freed in the Year of Celebration,
55 For to 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.
because [it is as though] you Israelis are my slaves/servants, whom I, Yahweh your God, freed from [being slaves in] Egypt.’”
