The Sabbatical Year
25 The Lord said to Moses on Mount Sinai, 2 “Say to the people of Israel, When you come into the land which I give you, the land shall keep a sabbath to the Lord. 3 Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in its fruits; 4 but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the Lord; you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. 5 What grows of itself in your harvest you shall not reap, and the grapes of your undressed vine you shall not gather; it shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. 6 The sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves and for your hired servant and the sojourner who lives with you; 7 for your cattle also and for the beasts that are in your land all its yield shall be for food.
The Year of Jubilee
8 “And you shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall be to you forty-nine years. 9 Then you shall send abroad the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the day of atonement you shall send abroad the trumpet throughout all your land. 10 And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants; it shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his family. 11 A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be to you; in it you shall neither sow, nor reap what grows of itself, nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. 12 For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat what it yields out of the field.
13 “In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property. 14 And if you sell to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another. 15 According to the number of years after the jubilee, you shall buy from your neighbor, and according to the number of years for crops he shall sell to you. 16 If the years are many you shall increase the price, and if the years are few you shall diminish the price, for it is the number of the crops that he is selling to you. 17 You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the Lord your God.
18 “Therefore you shall do my statutes, and keep my ordinances and perform them; so you will dwell in the land securely. 19 The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill, and dwell in it securely. 20 And if you say, ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ 21 I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, so that it will bring forth fruit for three years. 22 When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating old produce; until the ninth year, when its produce comes in, you shall eat the old. 23 The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with me. 24 And in all the country you possess, you shall grant a redemption of the land.
25 “If your brother becomes poor, and sells part of his property, then his next of kin shall come and redeem what his brother has sold. 26 If a man has no one to redeem it, and then himself becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it, 27 let him reckon the years since he sold it and pay back the overpayment to the man to whom he sold it; and he shall return to his property. 28 But if he has not sufficient means to get it back for himself, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of him who bought it until the year of jubilee; in the jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his property.
29 “If a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city, he may redeem it within a whole year after its sale; for a full year he shall have the right of redemption. 30 If it is not redeemed within a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be made sure in perpetuity to him who bought it, throughout his generations; it shall not be released in the jubilee. 31 But the houses of the villages which have no wall around them shall be reckoned with the fields of the country; they may be redeemed, and they shall be released in the jubilee. 32 Nevertheless the cities of the Levites, the houses in the cities of their possession, the Levites may redeem at any time. 33 And if one of the Levites does not exercise his right of redemption, then the house that was sold in a city of their possession shall be released in the jubilee; for the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the people of Israel. 34 But the fields of common land belonging to their cities may not be sold; for that is their perpetual possession.
35 “And if your brother becomes poor, and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall maintain him; as a stranger and a sojourner he shall live with you. 36 Take no interest from him or increase, but fear your God; that your brother may live beside you. 37 You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. 38 I am the Lord your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.
39 “And if your brother becomes poor beside you, and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: 40 he shall be with you as a hired servant and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee; 41 then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own family, and return to the possession of his fathers. 42 For they are my servants, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. 43 You shall not rule over him with harshness, but shall fear your God. 44 As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are round about you. 45 You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their families that are with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property. 46 You may bequeath them to your sons after you, to inherit as a possession for ever; you may make slaves of them, but over your brethren the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another, with harshness.
47 “If a stranger or sojourner with you becomes rich, and your brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner with you, or to a member of the stranger’s family, 48 then after he is sold he may be redeemed; one of his brothers may redeem him, 49 or his uncle, or his cousin may redeem him, or a near kinsman belonging to his family may redeem him; or if he grows rich he may redeem himself. 50 He shall reckon with him who bought him from the year when he sold himself to him until the year of jubilee, and the price of his release shall be according to the number of years; the time he was with his owner shall be rated as the time of a hired servant. 51 If there are still many years, according to them he shall refund out of the price paid for him the price for his redemption. 52 If there remain but a few years until the year of jubilee, he shall make a reckoning with him; according to the years of service due from him he shall refund the money for his redemption. 53 As a servant hired year by year shall he be with him; he shall not rule with harshness over him in your sight. 54 And if he is not redeemed by these means, then he shall be released in the year of jubilee, he and his children with him. 55 For to me the people of Israel are servants, they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
Footnotes
- Leviticus 25:8
- Leviticus 25:33
