Leviticus 25
1 And YHWH speaks to Moses, in Mount Sinai, saying,
The Lord told Moses on Mount Sinai,
2 “Speak to the sons of Israel, and you have said to them: When you come into the land which I am giving to you, then the land has kept a Sabbath to YHWH.
“Tell the Israelites: When you enter the land that I'm giving you, the land itself must also observe a Sabbath rest in honor of the Lord.
3 [For] six years you sow your field, and [for] six years you prune your vineyard, and have gathered its increase,
Six years you can cultivate your fields, take care of your vineyards, and harvest your crops.
4 and in the seventh year is a Sabbath of rest for the land, a Sabbath to YHWH; you do not sow your field, and you do not prune your vineyard;
But the seventh year is to be a Sabbath of complete rest for the land, a Sabbath in honor of the Lord. Don't plant your fields or care for your vineyards.
5 you do not reap the spontaneous growth of your harvest, and you do not gather the grapes of your separated thing; it is a year of rest for the land.
Don't harvest what may have grown up in your fields, or collect the grapes from your vineyards that you haven't cared for. The land is to have a year of complete rest.
6 And the Sabbath [increase] of the land has been for you for food, to you, and to your manservant, and to your handmaid, and to your hired worker, and to your settler, who are sojourning with you;
You can eat whatever the land produces during the Sabbath year. This applies to yourself, your male and female slaves, paid workers and foreigners who live with you,
7 and for your livestock, and for the beast which [is] in your land, is all its increase for [them] to eat.
and to your livestock and the wild animals living in your land. Whatever grows can be used for food.
8 And you have numbered seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years, and the days of the seven Sabbaths of years have been forty-nine years for you,
Count seven ‘sabbaths’ of years, in other words, seven times seven years, so that the seven sabbaths of years come to forty-nine years.
9 and you have caused a horn of shouting to pass over in the seventh month, on the tenth of the month; in the Day of Atonements you cause a horn to pass over through all your land;
Then blow the trumpet all through the country on the tenth day of the seventh month, which is the Day of Atonement. Make sure this signal is heard throughout your whole country.
10 and you have hallowed the year, the fiftieth year; and you have proclaimed liberty in the land to all its inhabitants; it is a Jubilee for you; and you have turned back each to his possession; indeed, you return each to his family.
You are to dedicate the fiftieth year and announce freedom everywhere in the country for all who live there. This is to be your Jubilee, when each of you is to return to reclaim your property and to be part of your family once more.
11 It [is] a Jubilee, the fiftieth year, it is a year for you; you do not sow, nor reap its spontaneous growth, nor gather its separated things;
The fiftieth year will be a Jubilee for you. Don't sow the land; don't harvest what may have grown up in your fields, or collect the grapes from your vineyards that you haven't cared for.
12 for it [is] a Jubilee—it is holy to you; you eat its increase from the field;
It is a Jubilee and it is to be holy to you. You can eat whatever the land produces.
13 you return each to his possession in this Year of the Jubilee.
In this Jubilee Year, every one of you shall return to your own property.
14 And when you sell anything to your fellow, or buy from the hand of your fellow, you do not oppress one another;
If you sell land to your neighbor, or buy land from him, don't exploit one another.
15 you buy from your fellow by the number of years after the Jubilee; he sells to you by the number of the years of increase;
When you buy from your neighbor work out how many years have passed since the last Jubilee, for he is to sell to you depending on how many years of harvest remain.
16 you multiply its price according to the multitude of the years, and you diminish its price according to the fewness of the years; for [it is] a number of increases [that] he is selling to you;
The more years that are left, the more you shall pay; the fewer years that are left, the less you shall pay, because he is actually selling you a specific number of harvests.
17 and you do not oppress one another, and you have been afraid of your God; for I [am] your God YHWH.
Don't exploit one another, but have respect for your God, because I am the Lord your God.
18 And you have done My statutes, and you keep My judgments, and have done them, and you have dwelt on the land confidently,
Keep my rules and observe my regulations, so you can live in safety in the land.
19 and the land has given its fruit, and you have eaten to satiety, and have dwelt confidently on it.
Then the land will produce good harvest, so you will have plenty to eat and live in safety there.
20 And when you say, What do we eat in the seventh year, behold, do we not sow, nor gather our increase?
But if you ask, ‘What are we going to in the seventh year if we do not sow or harvest our crops?’
21 Then I have commanded My blessing on you in the sixth year, and it has made the increase for three years;
I will bless you in the sixth year, so that the land will produce a crop that will be enough for three years.
22 and you have sown [in] the eighth year, and have eaten of the old increase; you eat the old until the ninth year, until the coming in of its increase.
As you sow in the eighth year, you will still be eating from that harvest, which will last until your harvest in the ninth year.
23 And the land is not sold—to extinction, for the land [is] Mine, for you [are] sojourners and settlers with Me;
Land must not be permanently sold, because it really belongs to me. To me you are only foreigners and travelers passing through.
24 and in all the land of your possession you give a redemption for the land.
So whatever land you buy to own, you must make arrangements so it can be returned to its original owner.
25 When your brother becomes poor, and has sold his possession, then his redeemer who is near to him has come, and he has redeemed the sold thing of his brother;
If one of your people becomes poor and sells you some of their land, their close family can come and buy back what they have sold.
26 and when a man has no redeemer, and his own hand has attained [means], and he has found [it] as sufficient [for] its redemption,
However, if they don't have anyone who can buy it back, but in the meantime their financial situation improves and they have enough to buy back the land,
27 then he has reckoned the years of its sale, and has given back that which is over to the man to whom he sold [it], and he has returned to his possession.
they will work how many years it has been since the sale, and pay back the balance to the person who bought it, and go back to their property
28 And if his hand has not found sufficiency to give back to him, then his sold thing has been in the hand of him who buys it until the Year of Jubilee; and it has gone out in the Jubilee, and he has returned to his possession.
If they can't raise enough to pay the person back for the land, the buyer will remain its owner until the Jubilee Year. But in the Jubilee the land will be returned so that the original owner can so that they can go back to their property.
29 And when a man sells a dwelling-house [in] a walled city, then his right of redemption has been until the completion of a year from its selling; his right of redemption is [during these] days;
If someone sells a house located in a walled town, they have the right to buy it back for a full year after selling it. It can be bought back any time during that year.
30 and if it is not redeemed to him until the fullness of a perfect year, then the house which [is] in a walled city has been established to extinction to him buying it, throughout his generations; it does not go out in the Jubilee.
If it isn't bought back be the end of a full year, then ownership of the house in the walled town is permanently transferred to the one who bought it and their descendants. It won't be returned in the Jubilee.
31 And a house of the villages which have no surrounding wall is reckoned on the field of the country; there is redemption for it, and it goes out in the Jubilee.
But houses in villages that don't have walls around them are to be treated as located in the fields. They can be bought back, and will be returned in the Jubilee.
32 As for cities of the Levites—houses of the cities of their possession—continuous redemption is for the Levites;
However, the Levites always have the right to buy back their houses in the towns that belong to them.
33 as for him who redeems from the Levites, then the sale of a house (and [in] the city of his possession) has gone out in the Jubilee, for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession in the midst of the sons of Israel.
Whatever the Levites own can be bought back, even houses sold in their towns, and must be returned in the Jubilee. That's because the houses in the towns of the Levites are what they were given to own as their share among the Israelites.
34 And a field, a outskirt of their cities, is not sold; for it [is] a continuous possession for them.
However, the fields surrounding their towns must not be sold because they belong to the Levites permanently.
35 And when your brother has become poor, and his hand has failed with you, then you have kept hold on him, sojourner and settler, and he has lived with you;
If any of your people become poor and can't survive, you must help them in the same way you would help a foreigner or a stranger, so that they can go on living in your neighborhood.
36 you take no usury or increase from him; and you have been afraid of your God; and your brother has lived with you;
Don't make them pay you any interest or demand more than they borrowed, but respect your God so that they can remain living in your area.
37 you do not give your money to him in usury, and you do not give your food for increase.
Don't lend them silver with interest or sell them food at an inflated price.
38 I [am] your God YHWH, who has brought you out of the land of Egypt to give the land of Canaan to you, to become your God.
Remember, I am the Lord your God who led you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.
39 And when your brother becomes poor with you, and he has been sold to you, you do not lay servile service on him;
If any of your people become poor and have to sell themselves to work for you, don't force them to work as a slave.
40 he is as a hired worker [and] as a settler with you; he serves with you until the Year of the Jubilee—
Have them live with you like a paid worker who is staying with you for a while. They are to work for you until the Jubilee Year.
41 then he has gone out from you, he and his sons with him, and has turned back to his family; and he turns back to the possession of his fathers.
Then they and their children must be freed, and they can go back to their family and to their family's property.
42 For they [are] My servants, whom I have brought out from the land of Egypt: they are not sold [with] the sale of a servant;
Israelites are not to be sold as slaves because they belong to me as my slaves—I led them out of Egypt.
43 you do not rule over him with rigor, and you have been afraid of your God.
Don't treat them with brutality. Have respect for your God.
44 And your manservant and your handmaid whom you have [are] from the nations who [are] around you; you buy manservant and handmaid from them,
Buy your male and female slaves from the surrounding nations.
45 and also from the sons of the settlers who are sojourning with you, you buy from them, and from their families who [are] with you, which they have begotten in your land, and they have been to you for a possession;
You can also buy them from foreigners who have come to live among you, or from their descendants born in your land. You can treat them as your property.
46 and you have taken them for an inheritance for your sons after you, to inherit [for] a possession; you lay service on them for all time, but on your brothers, the sons of Israel, each with his brother—you do not rule over him with rigor.
You can pass them on to your children to inherit as property after you die. You can make them slaves for life, but you must not brutally treat any of your own people, the Israelites, as a slave.
47 And when the hand of a sojourner or settler with you attains [riches], and your brother with him has become poor, and he has been sold to a sojourner, a settler with you, or to the root of the family of a sojourner,
If a foreigner among you becomes successful, and one of your people living nearby becomes poor and sells themselves to the foreigner or to a member of the foreigner's family,
48 after he has been sold, there is a right of redemption for him; one of his brothers redeems him,
they still have the right of being bought back after the sale. A member of their family can buy them back—
49 or his uncle or a son of his uncle redeems him, or any of the relations of his flesh, of his family, redeems him, or [if] his own hand has attained [means] then he has been redeemed.
an uncle or cousin or any close relative from their family can buy them back. If they become successful, they can buy themselves back.
50 And he has reckoned with his buyer from the year of his being sold to him until the Year of Jubilee, and the money of his sale has been by the number of years; it is with him as the days of a hired worker.
The person concerned and their buyer will work out the time from the year of the sale up to the Jubilee Year. The price will depend on the number of years, calculated using the daily rate for a paid worker.
51 If many years still [remain], he gives back his redemption [money] according to them, from the money of his purchase.
If there are many years left, they must pay a larger percentage of the purchase price.
52 And if few are left of the years until the Year of Jubilee, then he has reckoned with him [and] he gives back his redemption [money] according to his years;
If there are only a few years remaining before the Jubilee Year, then they only have to pay a percentage depending on the number of years still left.
53 as a hired worker, year by year, he is with him, and he does not rule him with rigor before your eyes.
They are to live with their foreign owner just like a paid worker, hired from year to year, but see to it that the owner doesn't treat him brutally.
54 And if he is not redeemed in these [years], then he has gone out in the Year of Jubilee, he and his sons with him.
If they are not bought back in any of the ways described, they and their children shall be freed in the Jubilee Year.
55 For the sons of Israel [are] servants to Me; they [are] My servants whom I have brought out of the land of Egypt; I [am] your God YHWH.”
For the Israelites belong to me as my slaves. They are my slaves—I led them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”
