Leviticus 25–26

The Sabbath Year

25^wThe Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, ²“Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into ^xthe land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. ³For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, ⁴but 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. ^5yYou shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. ⁶The Sabbath of the land¹ shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves² and for your hired worker and the sojourner who lives with you, ⁷and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: ^zall its yield shall be for food.

The Year of Jubilee

⁸“You shall count seven weeks³ of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. ⁹Then you shall sound ^athe loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. ^bOn the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. ¹⁰And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and ^cproclaim 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 ^dyou shall return to his clan. ¹¹That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it ^eyou shall neither sow nor reap ^ywhat grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. ¹²For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. ^fYou may eat the produce of the field.⁴

^13d“In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property. ¹⁴And if you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, ^gyou shall not wrong one another. ^15hYou shall pay your neighbor according to the number of years after the jubilee, and he shall sell to you according to the number of years for crops. ¹⁶If the years are many, you shall increase the price, and if the years are few, you shall reduce the price, for it is the number of the crops that he is selling to you. ¹⁷ⁱYou shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God.

^18j“Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then ^kyou will dwell in the land securely. ^19lThe land will yield its fruit, and ^myou will eat your fill ^kand dwell in it securely. ²⁰And if you say, ⁿ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if ^owe may not sow or gather in our crop?’ ²¹I will ^pcommand my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. ^22qWhen you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of ^rthe old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives.

Redemption of Property

²³“The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for ^sthe land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me. ²⁴And in all the country you possess, you shall allow a redemption of the land.

²⁵“If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his property, ^tthen his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his brother has sold. ²⁶If a man has no one to redeem it and then himself becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it, ²⁷let ^uhim calculate the years since he sold it and pay back the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and then return to his property. ²⁸But if he does not have sufficient means to recover it, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of the buyer until the year of jubilee. In the jubilee it shall ^vbe released, and ^whe shall return to his property.

²⁹“If a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city, he may redeem it within a year of its sale. For a full year he shall have the right of redemption. ³⁰If it is not redeemed within a full year, then the house in the walled city shall belong in perpetuity to the buyer, throughout his generations; ^vit shall not be released in the jubilee. ³¹But the houses of the villages that have no wall around them shall be classified with the fields of the land. They may be redeemed, and ^vthey shall be released in the jubilee. ³²As for ^xthe cities of the Levites, the Levites may redeem at any time the houses in the cities they possess. ³³And if one of the Levites exercises his right of redemption, then the house that was sold in a city they possess shall be released in the jubilee. For the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the people of Israel. ³⁴But the fields ^yof pastureland belonging to their cities may not be sold, for that is their possession forever.

Kindness for Poor Brothers

³⁵“If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, ^zyou shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. ^36aTake no interest from him or profit, but ^bfear your God, that your brother may live beside you. ^37aYou shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. ^38cI am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.

^39d“If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: ⁴⁰he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. ^41vThen he shall go out from you, ^ehe and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return ^fto the possession of his fathers. ⁴²For they are ^gmy servants,⁵ whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. ^43hYou shall not rule over him ⁱruthlessly but ^jshall fear your God. ⁴⁴As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. ^45kYou may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. ⁴⁶You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel ^lyou shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.

Redeeming a Poor Man

⁴⁷“If a stranger or sojourner with you becomes rich, and ^myour brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner with you or to a member of the stranger’s clan, ⁴⁸then after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him, ⁴⁹or his uncle or his cousin may ⁿredeem him, or a close relative from his clan may redeem him. Or if he ^ogrows rich he may redeem himself. ⁵⁰He shall calculate with his buyer from the year when he sold himself to him until the year of jubilee, and the price of his sale shall vary with the number of years. The time he was with his owner shall be ^prated as the time of a hired worker. ⁵¹If there are still many years left, he shall pay proportionately for his redemption some of his sale price. ⁵²If there remain but a few years until the year of jubilee, he shall calculate and pay for his redemption in proportion to his years of service. ⁵³He shall treat him as a worker hired year by year. ^lHe shall not rule ruthlessly over him in your sight. ⁵⁴And if he is not redeemed by these means, then ^qhe and his children with him shall be released in the year of jubilee. ⁵⁵For it is ^rto me that the people of Israel are servants.⁶ They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

Blessings for Obedience

26“You shall not make ^sidols for yourselves or erect an ^timage or ^upillar, and you shall not set up a ^vfigured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God. ^2wYou shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.

^3x“If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, ⁴then ^yI will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. ^5zYour threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And ^ayou shall eat your bread to the full and ^bdwell in your land securely. ^6cI will give peace in the land, and ^dyou shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. And ^eI will remove harmful beasts from the land, ^fand the sword shall not go through your land. ⁷You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. ^8gFive of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. ^9hI will turn to you and ⁱmake you fruitful and multiply you and will confirm my covenant with you. ¹⁰You shall eat ^jold store long kept, and you shall clear out the old to make way for the new. ^11kI will make my dwelling¹ among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. ^12lAnd I ^mwill walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. ¹³ⁿI am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. ^oAnd I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

Punishment for Disobedience

^14p“But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments, ¹⁵if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but ^qbreak my covenant, ¹⁶then I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, with ^rwasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And ^syou shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. ¹⁷I will ^tset my face against you, and ^uyou shall be struck down before your enemies. ^vThose who hate you shall rule over you, and ^wyou shall flee when none pursues you. ¹⁸And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again ^xsevenfold for your sins, ¹⁹and I will break ^ythe pride of your power, and I ^zwill make your heavens like iron and…