25 The Lord spoke to Moses
on Mount Sinai: 2Speak to the Israelite people and say to them:
When you enter the land that I assign to you, the land shall observe
a sabbath of the Lord. 3Six years you may sow your field and six
years you may prune your vineyard and gather in the yield. 4But
in the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath of complete rest,
a sabbath of the Lord: you shall not sow your field or prune your
vineyard. 5You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or
gather the grapes of your untrimmed vines; it shall be a year of
complete rest for the land. 6But you may eat whatever the land during
its sabbath will produce—you, your male and female slaves,
the hired and bound laborers who live with you, 7and your cattle
and the beasts in your land may eat all its yield.
8You shall count off seven weeks of years—seven
times seven years—so that the period of seven weeks of years
gives you a total of forty-nine years. 9Then you shall sound the
horn loud; in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month—the
Day of Atonement—you shall have the horn sounded throughout
your land 10and you shall hallow the fiftieth year. You shall proclaim
release throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be
a jubilee for you: each of you shall return to his holding and each
of you shall return to his family. 11That fiftieth year shall be
a jubileefor you: youshall not sow, neither shall you reap the aftergrowth
or harvest the untrimmed vines, 12for it is a jubilee. It shall
be holy to you: you may only eat the growth direct from the field.
13In this year of jubilee, each of you shall return
to his holding. 14When you sell property to your neighbor, or buy
any from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another. 15In buying
from your neighbor, you shall deduct only for the number of years
since the jubilee; and in selling to you, he shall charge you only
for the remaining crop years: 16the more such years, the higher
the price you pay; the fewer such years, the lower the price; for
what he is selling you is a number of harvests. 17Do not wrong one
another, but fear your God; for I the Lord am your God.
18You shall observe My laws and faithfully keep
My rules, that you may live upon the land in security; 19the land
shall yield its fruit and you shall eat your fill, and you shall
live upon it in security. 20And should you ask, "What are we
to eat in the seventh year, if we may neither sow nor gather in
our crops?" 21I will ordain My blessing for you in the sixth
year, so that it shall yield a crop sufficient for three years.
22When you sow in the eighth year, you will still be eating old
grain of that crop; you will be eating the old until the ninth year,
until its crops come in.
23But the land must not be sold beyond reclaim,
for the land is Mine; you are but strangers resident with Me. 24Throughout
the land that you hold, you must provide for the redemption of the
land.
25If your kinsman is in straits and has to sell part of his holding,
his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his kinsman has
sold. 26If a man has no one to redeem for him, but prospers and
acquires enough to redeem with, 27he shall compute the years since
its sale, refund the difference to the man to whom he sold it, and
return to his holding. 28If he lacks sufficient means to recover
it, what he sold shall remain with the purchaser until the jubilee;
in the jubilee year it shall be released, and he shall return to
his holding.
29If a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city,
it may be redeemed until a year has elapsed since its sale; the
redemption period shall be a year. 30If it is not redeemed before
a full year has elapsed, the house in the walled city shall pass
to the purchaser beyond reclaim throughout the ages; it shall not
be released in the jubilee. 31But houses in villages that have no
encircling walls shall be classed as open country: they may be redeemed,
and they shall be released through the jubilee. 32As for the cities
of the Levites, the houses in the cities they hold—the Levites
shall forever have the right of redemption. 33Such property as may
be redeemed from the Levites—houses sold in a city they hold—shall
be released through the jubilee; for the houses in the cities of
the Levites are their holding among the Israelites. 34But the unenclosed
land about their cities cannot be sold, for that is their holding
for all time.
35If your kinsman, being in straits, comes under
your authority, and you hold him as though a resident alien, let
him live by your side: 36do not exact from him advance or accrued
interest, but fear your God. Let him live by your side as your kinsman.
37Do not lend him your money at advance interest, or give him your
food at accrued interest. 38I the Lord am your God, who brought
you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, to
be your God.
39If your kinsman under you continues in straits
and must give himself over to you, do not subject him to the treatment
of a slave. 40He shall remain with you as a hired or bound laborer;
he shall serve with you only until the jubilee year. 41Then he and
his children with him shall be free of your authority; he shall
go back to his family and return to his ancestral holding.—42For
they are My servants, whom I freed from the land of Egypt; they
may not give themselves over into servitude.—43You shall not
rule over him ruthlessly; you shall fear your God. 44Such male and
female slaves as you may have—it is from the nations round
about you that you may acquire male and female slaves. 45You may
also buy them from among the children of aliens resident among you,
or from their families that are among you, whom they begot in your
land. These shall become your property: 46you may keep them as a
possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property
for all time. Such you may treat as slaves. But as for your Israelite
kinsmen, no one shall rule ruthlessly over the other.
47If a resident alien among you has prospered, and
your kinsman being in straits, comes under his authority and gives
himself over to the resident alien among you, or to an offshoot
of an alien’s family, 48he shall have the right of redemption
even after he has given himself over. One of his kinsmen shall redeem
him, 49or his uncle or his uncle’s son shall redeem him, or
anyone of his family who is of his own flesh shall redeem him; or,
if he prospers, he may redeem himself. 50He shall compute with his
purchaser the total from the year he gave himself over to him until
the jubilee year; the price of his sale shall be applied to the
number of years, as though it were for a term as a hired laborer
under the other’s authority. 51If many years remain, he shall
pay back for his redemption in proportion to his purchase price;
52and if few years remain until the jubilee year, he shall so compute:
he shall make payment for his redemption according to the years
involved. 53He shall be under his authority as a laborer hired by
the year; he shall not rule ruthlessly over him in your sight. 54If
he has not been redeemed in any of those ways, he and his children
with him shall go free in the jubilee year. 55For it is to Me that
the Israelites are servants: they are My servants, whom I freed
from the land of Egypt, I the Lord your God.
26 You shall not make idols for yourselves,
or set up for yourselves carved images or pillars, or place figured
stones in your land to worship upon, for I the Lord am your God.
2You shall keep My sabbaths and venerate My sanctuary, Mine, the
Lord’s.
