Leviticus 25
1 Yahweh said to Moses/me on Sinai Mountain,
And the Lord spoke to Moses in the mount Sina, saying,
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.
Speak to the children of Israel, and you shall say to them, Whenever you shall have entered into the land, which I give to you, then the land shall rest which I give to you, for its sabbaths to the Lord.
3 For six years you are to plant seeds in your fields and prune your grapevines and harvest the crops.
Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vine, and gather in its fruit.
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 in the seventh year [shall be] a sabbath, it shall be a rest to the land, a sabbath to the Lord: you shall not sow your field, and you shall not prune your vine.
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.
And you shall not gather the spontaneous produce of your field, and you shall not gather fully the grapes of your dedication: it shall be a year of rest to 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 sabbaths of the land shall be food for you, and for your man-servant, and for your maidservant, and your hireling, and the stranger that abides with 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 for the wild beats that are in your land, shall every fruit of it 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 you shall reckon to yourself seven sabbaths of years, seven times seven years; and they shall be to you seven weeks of years, nine and forty years.
In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall make a proclamation with the sound of a trumpet in all your land; on the day of atonement you shall make a proclamation with a trumpet in 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 you shall sanctify the year, the fifties year, and you shall proclaim a release upon the land to all that inhabit it; it shall be given a year of release, a jubilee for you; and each one shall depart to his possession, and you shall go each 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.
This is a jubilee of release, the year shall be to you the fifties year: you shall not sow, nor reap the produce that comes of itself from the land, neither shall you gather its dedicated fruits.
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 a jubilee of release; it shall be holy to you, you shall eat its fruits off the fields.
13 ‘In that Year of Celebration, everyone must return to their own property.
In the year of the release [even] the jubilee of it, shall [each] one return to his possession.
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 if you should sell a possession to your neighbour, or if you should buy of your neighbour, let not a man oppress his neighbour.
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.
According to the number of years after the jubilee shall you buy of your neighbour, according to the number of years of the fruits shall he sell to you.
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].
According as [there may be] a greater number of years he shall increase [the value of] his possession, and according as [there may be] a less number of years he shall lessen [the value of] his possession; for according to the number of his crops, so shall he sell to you.
17 Do not cheat each other; instead, revere me. I, Yahweh your God, [am the one who am commanding this].
Let not a man oppress his neighbour, and you shall fear the Lord your God: 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].
And you shall keep all my ordinances, and all my judgements; and do you observe them, and you shall keep them, and dwell securely in the land.
19 And crops will grow well on the land, and you will have plenty to eat.
And the land shall yield her increase, and you shall eat to fullness, and shall dwell securely in it.
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 should say, What shall we eat in this seventh year, if we do not sow nor gather in our fruits?
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 will I send my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and the land shall produce its fruits 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 you shall sow in the eighth year, and eat old fruits till the ninth year: until its fruit come, you shall eat old fruits of the old.
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.
And the land shall not be sold for a permanence; for the land is mine, because you are strangers and sojourners before me.
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].
And in every land of your possession, you shall allow ransoms for the land.
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.
And if your brother who is with you be poor, and should have sold [part] of his possession, and his kinsman who is near to him come, then he shall redeem the possession which his brother has sold.
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 one have no near kinsman, and he prosper with his hand, and he find sufficient money, [even] his ransom;
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 shall he calculate the years of his sale, and he shall give what is due to the man to whom he sold it, and he shall return to his possession.
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 his hand have not prospered sufficiently, so as that he should restore the money to him, then he that bought the possessions shall have them till the sixth year of the release; and it shall go out in the release, and the owner shall return to his possession.
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 any one should sell an inhabited house in a walled city, then there shall be the ransom of it, until [the time] is fulfilled: its time of ransom shall be a full year.
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 it be not ransomed until there be completed of its time a full year, the house which is in the walled city shall be surely confirmed to him that bought it, throughout his generations; and it shall not go out in the release.
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 the houses in the villages which have not a wall round about them, shall be reckoned as the fields of the country: they shall always be redeemable, and they shall go out in the release.
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.
And the cities of the Levites, the houses of the cities in their possession, shall be always redeemable to the Levites.
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 any one shall redeem a house of the Levites, then shall their sale of the houses of their possession go out in the release; because the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession in the midst of the children of Israel.
34 But the pastureland near their towns must not be sold. It must belong to the original owners permanently/forever.
And the lands set apart for their cities shall not be sold, because this is their perpetual possession.
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 who is with you become poor, and he fail in resources with you, you shall help him as a stranger and a sojourner, and your brother shall live with 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.
You shall not receive from him interest, nor increase: and you shall fear your God: I [am] the Lord: and your brother shall live with 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.
You shall not lend your money to him at interest, and you shall not lend your meat to him to be returned with increase.
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 brought you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Chanaan, so as to 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 by you be lowered, and be sold to you, he shall not serve you with the servitude of a slave.
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.
He shall be with you as a hireling or a sojourner, he shall work for you till the year of release:
41 During that year, you must free him, and he will go back to his family and to the property that his ancestors owned.
and he shall go out in the release, and his children with him; and he shall go to his family, he shall hasten back to his patrimony.
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.
Because these are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; such an one shall not be sold as a [common] servant.
43 And do not treat the Israelis whom you buy cruelly; instead, revere me, your God.
You shall not oppress him with labour, and shall fear the Lord your God.
44 ‘If you want to have slaves, you are permitted to buy them from nearby countries.
And whatever number of menservants and maidservants you shall have, you shall purchase male and female servants from the nations that are round about you.
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 of the sons of the sojourners that are amongst you, of these you shall buy and of their relations, all that shall be in your lands; let them be to you for a possession.
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 you shall distribute them to your children after you, and they shall be to you permanent possessions for ever: but of your brethren the children of Israel, one shall not oppress his brother in labours.
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 a stranger or sojourner with you wax rich, and your brother in distress be sold to the stranger or the sojourner that is with you, or to a proselyte by extraction;
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 is sold to him there shall be redemption for him, one of his brethren shall redeem him.
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.
A brother of his father, or a son of his father's brother shall redeem him; or let one of his near kin of his tribe redeem him, and if he should be rich and redeem himself,
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.
then shall he calculate with his purchaser from the year that he sold himself to him until the year of release: and the money of his purchase shall be as that of a hireling, he shall be with him from year to year.
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.
And if any have a greater number of years [than enough], according to these he shall pay his ransom out of his purchase-money.
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 but a little time be left of the years to the year of release, then shall he reckon to him according to his years, and shall pay his ransom
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.
as a hireling; he shall be with him from year to year; you shall not oppress him with labour before you.
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 do not pay his ransom accordingly, he shall go out in the year of his release, 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 my servants: they are my attendants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt.
