Leviticus 25
1 And the LORD spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying,
Yahweh said to Moses/me on Sinai Mountain,
2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto 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 thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy 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 unto the land, a sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy 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 groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: [for] it is a year of rest unto 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 thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee,
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 thy cattle, and for the beast that [are] in thy 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 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 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 shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth [day] of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.
10 And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout [all] the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto 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 jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather [the grapes] in it of thy 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 jubile; it shall be holy unto you: ye 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 jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession.
‘In that Year of Celebration, everyone must return to their own property.
14 And if thou sell ought unto thy neighbour, or buyest [ought] of thy neighbour’s hand, ye 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 jubile thou shalt buy of thy neighbour, [and] according unto the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee:
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 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 doth he sell unto thee.
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 Ye shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy 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 Wherefore ye shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and ye 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 ye 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 ye 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 upon 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 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].
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 ye [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 ye 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 thy brother be waxen poor, and hath 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 overplus unto the man to whom he sold it; that he may return unto 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 hath bought it until the year of jubile: and in the jubile it shall go out, and he shall return unto 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 jubile.
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 jubile.
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] jubile: 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 thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: [yea, though he be] a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee.
‘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 thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee.
[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 Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy 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 thy brother [that dwelleth] by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee; thou shalt 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 thee, [and] shall serve thee unto the year of jubile:
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 thee, [both] he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto 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 bondmen.
[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 Thou shalt not rule over him with rigour; but shalt fear thy God.
And do not treat the Israelis whom you buy cruelly; instead, revere me, your God.
44 Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, [shall be] of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen 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 ye 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 ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit [them for] a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.
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 thee, and thy brother [that dwelleth] by him wax poor, and sell himself unto the stranger [or] sojourner by thee, 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 brethren 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 nigh of kin unto 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 unto the year of jubile: and the price of his sale shall be according unto 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 unto 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 unto the year of jubile, then he shall count with him, [and] according unto 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 rigour over him in thy 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 jubile, [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 unto 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.’”
