Leviticus 25
1 Yahweh said to Moses/me on Sinai Mountain,
And the Lord said to Moses on Mount Sinai,
2 “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.
Say to the children of Israel, When you come into the land which I will give you, let the land keep a Sabbath to the Lord.
3 For six years you are to plant seeds in your fields and prune your grapevines and harvest the crops.
For six years put seed into your land, and for six years give care to your vines and get in the produce of them;
4 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].
But let the seventh year be a Sabbath of rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord; do not put seed into your land or have your vines cut.
5 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.
That which comes to growth of itself may not be cut, and the grapes of your uncared-for vines may not be taken off; let it be a year of rest for the land.
6 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.
And the Sabbath of the land will give food for you and your man-servant and your woman-servant and those working for payment, and for those of another country who are living among you;
7 Also, [during that year] your livestock and the wild animals in your land are permitted to eat it.’
And for your cattle and the beasts on the land; all the natural increase of the land will be for food.
8 ‘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.
And let seven Sabbaths of years be numbered to you, seven times seven years; even the days of seven Sabbaths of years, that is forty-nine years;
Then let the loud horn be sounded far and wide on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the day of taking away sin let the horn be sounded through all your land.
10 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).
And let this fiftieth year be kept holy, and say publicly that everyone in the land is free from debt: it is the Jubilee, and every man may go back to his heritage and to his family.
11 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.
Let this fiftieth year be the Jubilee: no seed may be planted, and that which comes to growth of itself may not be cut, and the grapes may not be taken from the uncared-for vines.
12 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).
For it is the Jubilee, and it is holy to you; your food will be the natural increase of the field.
13 ‘In that Year of Celebration, everyone must return to their own property.
In this year of Jubilee, let every man go back to his heritage.
14 ‘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:
And in the business of trading goods for money, do no wrong to one another.
15 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.
Let your exchange of goods with your neighbours have relation to the number of years after the year of Jubilee, and the number of times the earth has given her produce.
16 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].
If the number of years is great, the price will be increased, and if the number of years is small, the price will be less, for it is the produce of a certain number of years which the man is giving you.
17 Do not cheat each other; instead, revere me. I, Yahweh your God, [am the one who am commanding this].
And do no wrong, one to another, but let the fear of your God be before you; for I am the Lord your God.
18 ‘Obey all my laws [DOU] carefully. If you do that, you will continue to live safely in your country [DOU].
So keep my rules and my decisions and do them, and you will be safe in your land.
19 And crops will grow well on the land, and you will have plenty to eat.
And the land will give her fruit, and you will have food in full measure and be safe in the land.
20 But you may ask, “If we do not plant or harvest our crops during the seventh year, what will we have to eat?”
And if you say, Where will our food come from in the seventh year, when we may not put in seed, or get in the increase
21 [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!
Then I will send my blessing on you in the sixth year, and the land will give fruit enough for three years.
22 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!
And in the eighth year you will put in your seed, and get your food from the old stores, till the fruit of the ninth year is ready.
23 ‘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.
No exchange of land may be for ever, for the land is mine, and you are as my guests, living with me for a time.
24 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].
Wherever there is property in land, the owner is to have the right of getting it back.
25 ‘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.
If your brother becomes poor, and has to give up some of his land for money, his nearest relation may come and get back that which his brother has given up.
26 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,
And if he has no one to get it back for him, and later he himself gets wealth and has enough money to get it back;
27 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.
Then let him take into account the years from the time when he gave it up, and make up the loss for the rest of the years to him who took it, and so get back his property.
28 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.
But if he is not able to get it back for himself, then it will be kept by him who gave a price for it, till the year of Jubilee; and in that year it will go back to its first owner and he will have his property again.
29 ‘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.
And if a man gives his house in a walled town for money, he has the right to get it back for the space of a full year after he has given it up.
30 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.
And if he does not get it back by the end of the year, then the house in the town will become the property of him who gave the money for it, and of his children for ever; it will not go from him in the year of Jubilee.
31 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.
But houses in small unwalled towns will be the same as property in the country; they may be got back, and they will go back to their owners in the year of Jubilee.
32 ‘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.
But the houses in the towns of the Levites may be got back by the Levites at any time.
33 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].
And if a Levite does not give money to get back his property, his house in the town which was exchanged for money will come back to him in the year of Jubilee. For the houses of the towns of the Levites are their property among the children of Israel.
34 But the pastureland near their towns must not be sold. It must belong to the original owners permanently/forever.
But the land on the outskirts of their towns may not be exchanged for money, for it is their property for ever.
35 ‘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.
And if your brother becomes poor and is not able to make a living, then you are to keep him with you, helping him as you would a man from another country who is living among you.
36 [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.
Take no interest from him, in money or in goods, but have the fear of your God before you, and let your brother make a living among you.
37 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.
Do not take interest on the money which you let him have or on the food which you give him.
38 [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].
I am the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, that I might be your God.
39 ‘If one of your fellow Israelis becomes poor and sells himself to you, do not force him to work like a slave.
And if your brother becomes poor and gives himself to you for money, do not make use of him like a servant who is your property;
40 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.
But let him be with you as a servant working for payment, till the year of Jubilee;
41 During that year, you must free him, and he will go back to his family and to the property that his ancestors owned.
Then he will go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his family and to the property of his fathers.
42 [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.
For they are my servants whom I took out from the land of Egypt; they may not become the property of another.
43 And do not treat the Israelis whom you buy cruelly; instead, revere me, your God.
Do not be a hard master to him, but have the fear of God before you.
44 ‘If you want to have slaves, you are permitted to buy them from nearby countries.
But you may get servants as property from among the nations round about; from them you may take men-servants and women-servants.
45 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.
And in addition, you may get, for money, servants from among the children of other nations who are living with you, and from their families which have come to birth in your land; and these will be your property.
46 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.
And they will be your children's heritage after you, to keep as their property; they will be your servants for ever; but you may not be hard masters to your countrymen, the children of Israel.
47 ‘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,
And if one from another nation living among you gets wealth, and your countryman, at his side, becomes poor and gives himself for money to the man from another nation or to one of his family;
48 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:
After he has given himself he has the right to be made free, for a price, by one of his brothers,
49 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.
Or his father's brother, or the son of his father's brother, or any near relation; or if he gets money, he may make himself free.
50 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.
And let the years be numbered from the time when he gave himself to his owner till the year of Jubilee, and the price given for him will be in relation to the number of years, on the scale of the payment of a servant.
51 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.
If there is still a long time, he will give back, on account of it, a part of the price which was given for him.
52 If there are only a few years that remain until the Year of Celebration, he must pay a smaller amount to be released.
And if there is only a short time, he will take account of it with his master, and in relation to the number of years he will give back the price of making him free.
53 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.
And he will be with him as a servant working for payment year by year; his master is not to be cruel to him before your eyes.
54 ‘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,
And if he is not made free in this way, he will go out in the year of Jubilee, he and his children with him.
55 because [it is as though] you Israelis are my slaves/servants, whom I, Yahweh your God, freed from [being slaves in] Egypt.’”
For the children of Israel are servants to me; they are my servants whom I took out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
