Leviticus 25:55–27:34

⁵⁵An Israelite cannot be a permanent slave, because the people of Israel are the Lord’s slaves. He brought them out of Egypt; he is the Lord their God.

Blessings for Obedience

26^*The Lord said, “Do not make idols or set up statues, stone pillars, or carved stones to worship. I am the Lord your God. ²Keep the religious festivals and honour the place where I am worshipped. I am the Lord.

^3*“If you live according to my laws and obey my commands, ^4*I will send you rain at the right time, so that the land will produce crops and the trees will bear fruit. ^5*Your crops will be so plentiful that you will still be harvesting corn when it is time to pick grapes, and you will still be picking grapes when it is time to sow corn. You will have all that you want to eat, and you will live in safety in your land.

⁶“I will give you peace in your land, and you will sleep without being afraid of anyone. I will get rid of the dangerous animals in the land, and there will be no more war there. ⁷You will be victorious over your enemies; ⁸five of you will be able to defeat a hundred, and a hundred will be able to defeat ten thousand. ⁹I will bless you and give you many children; I will keep my part of the covenant that I made with you. ¹⁰Your harvests will be so plentiful that they will last for a year, and even then you will have to throw away what is left of the old harvest to make room for the new. ¹¹I will live among you in my sacred tent, and I will never turn away from you. ^12*I will be with you; I will be your God, and you will be my people. ¹³I, the Lord your God, brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves. I broke the power that held you down and I let you walk with your head held high.”

Punishment for Disobedience

^14*The Lord said, “If you will not obey my commands, you will be punished. ^15*If you refuse to obey my laws and commands and break the covenant I have made with you, ^16*I will punish you. I will bring disaster on you—incurable diseases and fevers that will make you blind and cause your life to waste away. You will sow your seed, but it will do you no good, because your enemies will conquer you and eat what you have grown. ^17*I will turn against you, so that you will be defeated, and those who hate you will rule over you; you will be so terrified that you will run when no one is chasing you.

^18*“If even after all this you still do not obey me, I will increase your punishment seven times. ^19*I will break your stubborn pride; there will be no rain, and your land will be dry and as hard as iron. ^20*All your hard work will do you no good, because your land will not produce crops and the trees will not bear fruit.

^21*“If you still continue to resist me and refuse to obey me, I will again increase your punishment seven times. ^22*I will send dangerous animals among you, and they will kill your children, destroy your livestock, and leave so few of you that your roads will be deserted.

^23*“If after all this punishment you still do not listen to me, but continue to defy me, ^24*then I will turn on you and punish you seven times harder than before. ^25*I will bring war on you to punish you for breaking our covenant, and if you gather in your cities for safety, I will send incurable diseases among you, and you will be forced to surrender to your enemies. ^26*I will cut off your food supply, so that ten women will need only one oven to bake all the bread they have. They will ration it out, and when you have eaten it all, you will still be hungry.

^27*“If after all this you still continue to defy me and refuse to obey me, ^28*then in my anger I will turn on you and again make your punishment seven times worse than before. ^29*Your hunger will be so great that you will eat your own children. ^30*I will destroy your places of worship on the hills, tear down your incense altars, and throw your dead bodies on your fallen idols. In utter disgust ^31*I will turn your cities into ruins, destroy your places of worship, and refuse to accept your sacrifices. ^32*I will destroy your land so completely that the enemies who occupy it will be shocked at the destruction. ^33*I will bring war on you and scatter you in foreign lands. Your land will be deserted, and your cities left in ruins. ^34–35Then the land will enjoy the years of complete rest that you would not give it; it will lie abandoned and get its rest while you are in exile in the land of your enemies.

³⁶“I will make those of you who are in exile so terrified that the sound of a leaf blowing in the wind will make you run. You will run as if you were being pursued in battle, and you will fall when there is no enemy near you. ³⁷You will stumble over one another when no one is chasing you, and you will be unable to fight against any enemy. ³⁸You will die in exile, swallowed up by the land of your enemies. ³⁹The few of you who survive in the land of your enemies will waste away because of your own sin and the sin of your ancestors.

⁴⁰“But your descendants will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors, who resisted me and rebelled against me, ⁴¹and made me turn against them and send them into exile in the land of their enemies. At last, when your descendants are humbled and they have paid the penalty for their sin and rebellion, ^42*I will remember my covenant with Jacob and with Isaac and with Abraham, and I will renew my promise to give my people the land. ⁴³First, however, the land must be rid of its people, so that it can enjoy its complete rest, and they must pay the full penalty for having rejected my laws and my commands. ⁴⁴But even then, when they are still in the land of their enemies, I will not completely abandon or destroy them. That would put an end to my covenant with them, and I am the Lord their God. ⁴⁵I will renew the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I showed all the nations my power by bringing my people out of Egypt, in order that I, the Lord, might be their God.”

⁴⁶All these are the laws and commands that the Lord gave to Moses on Mount Sinai for the people of Israel.

Laws Concerning Gifts to the

27The Lord gave Moses ²the following regulations for the people of Israel. When a person has been given to the Lord in fulfilment of a special vow, that person may be set free by the payment of the following sums of money, ^3–7according to the official standard:

—adult male, twenty to sixty years old: 50 pieces of silver

—adult female: 30 pieces of silver

—young male, five to twenty years old: 20 pieces of silver

—young female: 10 pieces of silver

—infant male under five: 5 pieces of silver

—infant female: 3 pieces of silver

—male above sixty years of age: 15 pieces of silver

—female above sixty: 10 pieces of silver

⁸If anyone who made the vow is too poor to pay the standard price, he or she shall bring the person to the priest, and the priest will set a lower price, according to the ability of that person to pay.

⁹If the vow concerns an animal that is acceptable as an offering to the Lord, then every gift made to the Lord is sacred, ¹⁰and anyone who made the vow may not substitute another animal for it. If he does, both animals belong to the Lord. ¹¹But if the vow concerns a ritually unclean animal, which is not acceptable as an offering to the Lord, the man shall take the animal to the priest. ¹²The priest shall fix a price for it, according to its good or bad qualities, and the price will be final. ¹³If the person wishes to buy it back, he must pay the price plus an additional twenty per cent.

¹⁴When someone dedicates his house to the Lord, the priest shall fix the price according to its good or bad points, and the price will be final. ¹⁵If the one who dedicated the house wishes to buy it back, he must pay the price plus an additional twenty per cent.

¹⁶If someone dedicates part of his land to the Lord, the price shall be fixed according to the amount of seed it takes to sow it, at the rate of ten pieces of silver for every twenty kilogrammes of barley. ¹⁷If he dedicates the land immediately after a Year of Restoration, the full price applies. ¹⁸If he dedicates it later, the priest shall estimate the cash value according to the number of years left until the next Year of Restoration, and fix a reduced price. ¹⁹If the one who dedicated the field wishes to buy it back, he or she must pay the price plus an additional twenty per cent. ²⁰If they sell the field to someone else without first buying it back from the Lord, they lose the right to buy it back. ²¹At the next Year of Restoration the field will become the Lord’s permanent property; it shall belong to the priests.

²²If someone dedicates to the Lord a field that he has bought, ²³the priest shall estimate its value according to the number of years until the next Year of Restoration, and the person must pay the price that very day; the money belongs to the Lord. ²⁴At the Year of Restoration the field shall be returned to the original owner or to his descendants.

²⁵All prices shall be fixed according to the official standard. ²⁶The firstborn of an animal already belongs to the Lord, so no one may dedicate it to him as a freewill offering. A calf, a lamb, or a kid belongs to the Lord, ²⁷but the firstborn of an unclean animal may be bought back at the standard price plus an additional twenty per cent. If it is not bought back, it may be sold to someone else at the standard price.

^28*No one may sell or buy back what he has unconditionally dedicated^o to the Lord, whether it is a human being, an animal, or land. It belongs permanently to the Lord. ²⁹Not even a human being who has been unconditionally dedicated may be bought back; he must be put to death.

^30*One-tenth of all the produce of the land, whether grain or fruit, belongs to the Lord. ^31*If a man wishes to buy any of it back, he must pay the standard price plus an additional twenty per cent. ^32*One out of every ten domestic animals belongs to the Lord. When the animals are counted, every tenth one belongs to the Lord. ^33*…