Leviticus
Chapter 25
1 God spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai and said.
2 Talk to the people of Israel and tell them, when you enter the land I am giving you, the land must rest for God.
3 For six years you should plant your fields, trim your vineyard, and collect its fruit.
4 In the seventh year, the land must rest and have a sabbath for God. You must not plant your fields or trim your vineyards.
5 Do not cut what grows by itself in your harvest or pick grapes from your unpruned vines; this is a year for the land to rest.
6 The land’s rest will provide food for you, your servants, your maids, your workers, and any travelers staying with you.
7 Your animals and the wild creatures in your land will have all the crops to eat.
8 You must count seven sets of seven years, adding up to forty-nine years in total.
9 You will blow the trumpet to announce the Jubilee on the tenth day of the seventh month, and on the Day of Atonement, the trumpet will be heard everywhere in your land.
10 Make the fiftieth year holy, and announce freedom all over the country to everyone living there: it will be a special celebration for you; and everyone will go back to their own property, and everyone will go back to their own family.
11 That fiftieth year will be a special celebration for you: you must not plant seeds, harvest crops that grow on their own, or pick grapes from untrimmed vines.
12 It is a special year; it should be sacred to you. You can eat what grows in the fields.
13 In the year of this special celebration, each person should go back to their own property.
14 If you sell something to your neighbor or buy something from your neighbor’s hand, do not cheat each other.
15 Based on the years left after the Jubilee, you will buy from your neighbor, and according to the years of crops, he will sell to you.
16 The more years there are, the higher the price will be, and the fewer years there are, the lower the price will be, because it’s sold based on how many years of crops it can produce.
17 Do not treat each other unfairly, but respect your God; for I am your God.
18 So you should follow my rules, obey my laws, and act on them; then you will live safely in the land.
19 The land will produce its crops, you will eat as much as you need, and you will live there safely.
20 If you ask, “What will we eat in the seventh year if we don’t plant or harvest our crops?”
21 Then I will order my blessing for you in the sixth year, and it will produce crops for three years.
22 You will plant crops in the eighth year and eat from the old produce until the ninth year; you will eat from the old supplies until the new crops are ready.
23 The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are only travelers and temporary residents with me.
24 In all the land you own, you must provide a way to buy it back.
25 If your brother becomes poor and sells some of his property, and a relative comes to buy it back, then they should buy back what their brother sold.
26 If the man has no one to buy it back for him, but he can afford to buy it back himself;
27 Let him calculate the years since he sold it and give back the extra amount to the person he sold it to, so that person can return to his property.
28 If he can’t pay back, what he sold stays with the buyer until the Year of Jubilee. Then it will be returned, and he will get his property back.
29 If someone sells a house in a city with walls, they can buy it back within one year after the sale.
30 If the house in the city with walls is not bought back within a year, then it will belong forever to the person who bought it, and it will not be returned in the Jubilee.
31 The houses in unwalled villages will be treated like country land: they can be bought back, and they will be freed in the Jubilee.
32 Despite this, the Levites can buy back the cities and houses they own at any time.
33 If someone buys a house from the Levites, that house in the Levites’ town becomes theirs again in the Jubilee year, because the houses in Levite cities are their permanent property among the Israelites.
34 But the land around their cities cannot be sold; it is theirs forever.
35 If your brother becomes poor and cannot support himself with you, you must help him. Even if he is a stranger or a visitor, so he can live with you.
36 Do not charge him interest or profit, but respect God, so your brother can survive with you.
37 You must not lend him your money with interest, nor give him your food to get more back.
38 I am God, your God, who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.
39 If your nearby brother becomes poor and sells himself to you, don’t make him work like a slave.
40 Like a paid worker and a temporary resident, he will stay with you and work for you until the Jubilee year.
41 He will then leave you, along with his children, and go back to his family and his ancestors’ property.
42 They are my servants, whom I freed from Egypt; they must not be sold as slaves.
43 Do not treat him harshly, but respect your God.
44 You can have male and female slaves from the foreign nations around you; you can buy male and female slaves from them.
45 You can buy foreigners who live with you and their families born in your land; they will belong to you.
46 You will receive them as a heritage for your children after you, to own as property; they will be your servants forever. But do not rule harshly over your fellow Israelites.
47 If a foreigner or stranger becomes wealthy among you, and your fellow countryman becomes poor and sells himself to the foreigner living among you, or to a foreigner’s family.
48 After he is sold, he can be bought back; one of his relatives can buy him back.
49 His uncle or his cousin can buy him back, or any close relative from his family can do it; or if he gets the money, he can buy himself back.
50 He must calculate with the one who bought him, starting from the year he was sold until the jubilee year. The cost of his sale will depend on how many years are left, just like the wage of a hired worker.
51 If many years remain, he must pay back the redemption price from the money he was bought with.
52 If only a few years are left until the Year of Jubilee, he must calculate that with him and pay back the cost of his freedom based on the remaining years.
53 He shall be treated like a worker hired year by year; he must not be treated harshly in your presence.
54 If he is not set free within those years, then he and his children will be released in the Year of Jubilee.
55 The people of Israel are my servants; they are the ones I freed from Egypt. I am your God.