Leviticus 25

1 And Jehovah speaketh unto Moses, in mount Sinai, saying,

Yahweh spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying,

2 'Speak unto the sons of Israel, and thou hast said unto them, When ye come in unto the land which I am giving to you, then hath the land kept a sabbath to Jehovah.

“Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, 'When you come into the land that I give you, then the land must be made to keep a Sabbath for Yahweh.

3 'Six years thou dost sow thy field, and six years thou dost prune thy vineyard, and hast gathered its increase,

You must plant your field for six years, and for six years you must prune your vineyard and gather the produce.

4 and in the seventh year a sabbath of rest is to the land, a sabbath to Jehovah; thy field thou dost not sow, and thy vineyard thou dost not prune;

But in the seventh year, a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land must be observed, a Sabbath for Yahweh. You must not plant your field or prune your vineyard.

5 the spontaneous growth of thy harvest thou dost not reap, and the grapes of thy separated thing thou dost not gather, a year of rest it is to the land.

You must not conduct an organized harvest of whatever grows by itself, and you must not conduct an organized harvest of whatever grapes grow on your unpruned vines. This will be a year of solemn rest for the land.

6 'And the sabbath of the land hath been to you for food, to thee, and to thy man-servant, and to thy handmaid, and to thy hireling, and to thy settler, who are sojourning with thee;

Whatever the unworked land grows during the Sabbath year will be food for you. You, your male and female servants, your hired servants and the foreigners who live with you may gather food,

7 and to thy cattle, and to the beast which [is] in thy land, is all thine increase for food.

and your livestock and also wild animals may eat whatever the land produces.

8 'And thou hast numbered to thee seven sabbaths of years, seven years seven times, and the days of the seven sabbaths of years have been to thee nine and forty years,

You must count off seven Sabbaths of years, that is, seven times seven years, so that there will be seven Sabbaths of years, totaling forty-nine years.

9 and thou hast caused a trumpet of shouting to pass over in the seventh month, in the tenth of the month; in the day of the atonements ye do cause a trumpet to pass over through all your land;

Then you must blow a loud trumpet everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you must blow a trumpet throughout all your land.

10 and ye have hallowed the year, the fiftieth year; and ye have proclaimed liberty in the land to all its inhabitants; a jubilee it is to you; and ye have turned back each unto his possession; yea, each unto his family ye do turn back.

You must set apart the fiftieth year to Yahweh and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It will be a Jubilee for you, in which property and slaves must be returned to their families.

11 'A jubilee it [is], the fiftieth year, a year it is to you; ye sow not, nor reap its spontaneous growth, nor gather its separated things;

The fiftieth year will be a Jubilee for you. You must not plant or conduct an organized harvest. Eat whatever grows by itself, and gather the grapes that grow on the unpruned vines.

12 for a jubilee it [is], holy it is to you; out of the field ye eat its increase;

For it is a Jubilee, which will be holy for you. You must eat the produce that grows by itself out of the fields.

13 in the year of this jubilee ye turn back each unto his possession.

You must return everyone to his own property in this year of Jubilee.

14 'And when thou sellest anything to thy fellow, or buyest from the hand of thy fellow, ye do not oppress one another;

If you sell any land to your neighbor or buy any land from your neighbor, you must not cheat or wrong each other.

15 by the number of years after the jubilee thou dost buy from thy fellow; by the number of the years of increase he doth sell to thee;

If you buy land from your neighbor, consider the number of years and crops that can be harvested until the next Jubilee. Your neighbor selling the land must consider that also.

16 according to the multitude of the years thou dost multiply its price, and according to the fewness of the years thou dost diminish its price; for a number of increases he is selling to thee;

A larger number of years until the next Jubilee will increase the value of land, and a smaller number of years until the next Jubilee will decrease the value, because the number of harvests the land will produce for the new owner is related to the number of years before the next Jubilee.

17 and ye do not oppress one another, and thou hast been afraid of thy God; for I [am] Jehovah your God.

You must not cheat or wrong one another; instead, you must honor your God, for I am Yahweh your God.

18 'And ye have done My statutes, and My judgments ye keep, and have done them, and ye have dwelt on the land confidently,

Therefore you must obey my decrees, keep my laws, and carry them out. Then you will live in the land in safety.

19 and the land hath given its fruit, and ye have eaten to satiety, and have dwelt confidently on it.

The land will yield its produce, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety.

20 'And when ye say, What do we eat in the seventh year, lo, we do not sow, nor gather our increase?

You might say, “What will we eat during the seventh year? Look, we cannot plant or gather our produce.”

21 then I have commanded My blessing on you in the sixth year, and it hath made the increase for three years;

I will command my blessing to come upon you in the sixth year, and it will produce harvest enough for three years.

22 and ye have sown the eighth year, and have eaten of the old increase; until the ninth year, until the coming in of its increase, ye do eat the old.

You will plant in the eighth year and continue to eat from the previous years' produce and the stored food. Until the harvest of the ninth year comes in, you will be able to eat from the provisions stored in the previous years.

23 'And the land is not sold — to extinction, for the land [is] Mine, for sojourners and settlers [are] ye with Me;

The land must not be sold to a new permanent owner, because the land is mine. You are all foreigners and temporary residents on my land.

24 and in all the land of your possession a redemption ye do give to the land.

You must observe the right of redemption for all the land that you acquire; you must allow the land to be bought back by the family from whom you bought it.

25 'When thy brother becometh poor, and hath sold his possession, then hath his redeemer who is near unto him come, and he hath redeemed the sold thing of his brother;

If your fellow Israelite became poor and for that reason sold some of his property, then his nearest relative may come and buy back the property that he sold to you.

26 and when a man hath no redeemer, and his own hand hath attained, and he hath found as sufficient [for] its redemption,

If a man has no relative to redeem his property, but if he has prospered and has the ability to redeem it,

27 then he hath reckoned the years of its sale, and hath given back that which is over to the man to whom he sold [it], and he hath returned to his possession.

then he may calculate the years since the land was sold and repay the balance to the man to whom he sold it. Then he may return to his own property.

28 'And if his hand hath not found sufficiency to give back to him, then hath his sold thing been in the hand of him who buyeth it till the year of jubilee; and it hath gone out in the jubilee, and he hath returned to his possession.

But if he is not able to get the land back for himself, then the land he has sold will remain in the ownership of the one who bought it until the year of Jubilee. At the year of Jubilee, the land will be returned to the man who sold it, and the original owner will return to his property.

29 'And when a man selleth a dwelling-house [in] a walled city, then hath his right of redemption been until the completion of a year from its selling; days — is his right of redemption;

If a man sells a house in a walled city, then he may buy it back within a whole year after it was sold. For a full year he will have the right of redemption.

30 and if it is not redeemed until the fulness to him of a perfect year, then hath the house which [is] in a walled city been established to extinction to the buyer of it, to his generations; it goeth not out in the jubilee;

If the house is not redeemed within a full year, then the house in the walled city will become the permanent property of the buyer and his descendants. It is not to be returned in the year of Jubilee.

31 and a house of the villages which have no wall round about, on the field of the country is reckoned; redemption is to it, and in the jubilee it goeth out.

But the houses of the villages that have no wall around them will be considered as the field of the land. They may be redeemed, and they must be returned during the year of Jubilee.

32 'As to cities of the Levites — houses of the cities of their possession — redemption age-during is to the Levites;

However, the houses owned by the Levites in their cities may be redeemed at any time.

33 as to him who redeemeth from the Levites, both the sale of a house and the city of his possession have 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.

If one of the Levites does not redeem a house he sold, then the house that was sold in the city where it is located must be returned in the year of Jubilee, for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their property among the people of Israel.

34 And a field, a suburb of their cities, is not sold; for a possession age-during it [is] to them.

But the fields around their cities may not be sold because they are the permanent property of the Levites.

35 'And when thy brother is become poor, and his hand hath failed with thee, then thou hast kept hold on him, sojourner and settler, and he hath lived with thee;

If your fellow countryman becomes poor, so that he can no longer provide for himself, then you must help him as you would help a foreigner or anyone else living as an outsider among you.

36 thou takest no usury from him, or increase; and thou hast been afraid of thy God; and thy brother hath lived with thee;

Do not charge him interest or try to profit from him in any way, but honor your God so that your brother may keep living with you.

37 thy money thou givest not to him in usury, and for increase thou givest not thy food;

You must not give him a loan of money and charge interest, nor sell him your food to earn a profit.

38 I [am] Jehovah your God, who hath brought you out of the land of Egypt, to give to you the land of Canaan, to become your God.

I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, in order that I might give you the land of Canaan, and that I might be your God.

39 'And when thy brother becometh poor with thee, and he hath been sold to thee, thou dost not lay on him servile service;

If your fellow countryman has become poor and sells himself to you, you must not make him work like a slave.

40 as an hireling, as a settler, he is with thee, till the year of the jubilee he doth serve with thee, —

Treat him as a hired servant. He must be like someone living temporarily with you. He will serve with you until the year of Jubilee.

41 then he hath gone out from thee, he and his sons with him, and hath turned back unto his family; even unto the possession of his fathers he doth turn back.

Then he will go away from you, he and his children with him, and he will return to his own family and to his fathers' 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;

For they are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. They will not be sold as slaves.

43 thou rulest not over him with rigour, and thou hast been afraid of thy God.

You must not rule over them harshly, but you must honor your God.

44 'And thy man-servant and thy handmaid whom thou hast [are] of the nations who [are] round about you; of them ye buy man-servant and handmaid,

As for your male and female slaves, whom you can obtain from the nations who live around you, you may buy slaves from them.

45 and also of the sons of the settlers who are sojourning with you, of them ye buy, and of their families who [are] with you, which they have begotten in your land, and they have been to you for a possession;

You may also buy slaves from the foreigners who are living among you, that is, from their families who are with you, children who have been born in your land. They may become your property.

46 and ye have taken them for inheritance to your sons after you, to occupy [for] a possession; to the age ye lay service upon them, but upon your brethren, the sons of Israel, one with another, thou dost not rule over him with rigour.

You may provide such slaves as an inheritance for your children after you, to hold as property, and make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your brothers among the people of Israel with harshness.

47 'And when the hand of a sojourner or settler with thee attaineth [riches], and thy brother with him hath become poor, and he hath been sold to a sojourner, a settler with thee, or to the root of the family of a sojourner,

If a foreigner or someone living temporarily with you has become wealthy, and if one of your fellow Israelites has become poor and sells himself to that foreigner, or to someone in a foreigner's family,

48 after he hath been sold, there is a right of redemption to him; one of his brethren doth redeem him,

after your fellow Israelite has been bought, he may be bought back. Someone in his family may redeem him.

49 or his uncle, or a son of his uncle, doth redeem him, or any of the relations of his flesh, of his family, doth redeem him, or — his own hand hath attained — then he hath been redeemed.

It might be the person's uncle, or his uncle's son, who redeems him, or anyone who is his close relative from his family. Or, if he has become prosperous, he may redeem himself.

50 'And he hath reckoned with his buyer from the year of his being sold to him till the year of jubilee, and the money of his sale hath been by the number of years; as the days of an hireling it is with him.

He must bargain with the man who bought him; they must count the years from the year he sold himself to his purchaser until the year of Jubilee. The price of his redemption must be figured in keeping with the rate paid to a hired servant, for the number of years he might continue to work for the one who bought him.

51 'If yet many years, according to them he giveth back his redemption [money], from the money of his purchase.

If there are still many years until the year of Jubilee, he must pay back as the price for his redemption an amount of money that is in proportion to the number of those years.

52 'And if few are left of the years till the year of jubilee, then he hath reckoned with him, according to his years he doth give back his redemption [money];

If there are only a few years to the year of Jubilee, then he must bargain with his purchaser to reflect the number of years left before the year of Jubilee, and he must pay for his redemption in keeping with the number of years.

53 as an hireling, year by year, he is with him, and he doth not rule him with rigour before thine eyes.

He is to be treated like a man hired year by year. You must make sure he is not treated with harshness.

54 'And if he is not redeemed in these [years], then he hath gone out in the year of jubilee, he and his sons with him.

If he is not redeemed by these means, then he must serve until the year of Jubilee, he and his children with him.

55 For to Me [are] the sons of Israel servants; My servants they [are], whom I have brought out of the land of Egypt; I, Jehovah, [am] your God.

To me the people of Israel are servants. They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am Yahweh your God.'”