Leviticus 25:1-40

Regulations for the Sabbatical Year

25:1 The Lord spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai: 25:2 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land must observe a Sabbath to the Lord. 25:3 Six years you may sow your field, and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather the produce, 25:4 but in the seventh year the land must have a Sabbath of complete rest – a Sabbath to the Lord. You must not sow your field or prune your vineyard. 25:5 You must not gather in the aftergrowth of your harvest and you must not pick the grapes of your unpruned vines; the land must have a year of complete rest. 25:6 You may have the Sabbath produce of the land to eat – you, your male servant, your female servant, your hired worker, the resident foreigner who stays with you, 25:7 your cattle, and the wild animals that are in your land – all its produce will be for you to eat.

Regulations for the Jubilee Year of Release

25:8 “‘You must count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, and the days of the seven weeks of years will amount to forty-nine years. 25:9 You must sound loud horn blasts – in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, on the Day of Atonement – you must sound the horn in your entire land. 25:10 So you must consecrate the fiftieth year, and you must proclaim a release in the land for all its inhabitants. That year will be your jubilee; each one of you must return to his property and each one of you must return to his clan. 25:11 That fiftieth year will be your jubilee; you must not sow the land, harvest its aftergrowth, or pick the grapes of its unpruned vines. 25:12 Because that year is a jubilee, it will be holy to you – you may eat its produce from the field.

Release of Landed Property

25:13 “‘In this year of jubilee you must each return to your property. 25:14 If you make a sale to your fellow citizen or buy from your fellow citizen, no one is to wrong his brother. 25:15 You may buy it from your fellow citizen according to the number of years since the last jubilee; he may sell it to you according to the years of produce that are left. 25:16 The more years there are, the more you may make its purchase price, and the fewer years there are, the less you must make its purchase price, because he is only selling to you a number of years of produce. 25:17 No one is to oppress his fellow citizen, but you must fear your God, because I am the Lord your God. 25:18 You must obey my statutes and my regulations; you must be sure to keep them so that you may live securely in the land.

25:19 “‘The land will give its fruit and you may eat until you are satisfied, and you may live securely in the land. 25:20 If you say, ‘What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not sow and gather our produce?’ 25:21 I will command my blessing for you in the sixth year so that it may yield the produce for three years, 25:22 and you may sow the eighth year and eat from that sixth year’s produce – old produce. Until you bring in the ninth year’s produce, you may eat old produce. 25:23 The land must not be sold without reclaim because the land belongs to me, for you are foreigners and residents with me. 25:24 In all your landed property you must provide for the right of redemption of the land.

25:25 “‘If your brother becomes impoverished and sells some of his property, his near redeemer is to come to you and redeem what his brother sold. 25:26 If a man has no redeemer, but he prospers and gains enough for its redemption, 25:27 he is to calculate the value of the years it was sold, refund the balance to the man to whom he had sold it, and return to his property. 25:28 If he has not prospered enough to refund a balance to him, then what he sold will belong to the one who bought it until the jubilee year, but it must revert in the jubilee and the original owner may return to his property.

Release of Houses

25:29 “‘If a man sells a residential house in a walled city, its right of redemption must extend until one full year from its sale; its right of redemption must extend to a full calendar year. 25:30 If it is not redeemed before the full calendar year is ended, the house in the walled city will belong without reclaim to the one who bought it throughout his generations; it will not revert in the jubilee. 25:31 The houses of villages, however, which have no wall surrounding them must be considered as the field of the land; they will have the right of redemption and must revert in the jubilee. 25:32 As for the cities of the Levites, the houses in the cities which they possess, the Levites must have a perpetual right of redemption. 25:33 Whatever someone among the Levites might redeem – the sale of a house which is his property in a city – must revert in the jubilee, because the houses of the cities of the Levites are their property in the midst of the Israelites. 25:34 Moreover, the open field areas of their cities must not be sold, because that is their perpetual possession.

Debt and Slave Regulations

25:35 “‘If your brother becomes impoverished and is indebted to you, you must support him; he must live with you like a foreign resident. 25:36 Do not take interest or profit from him, but you must fear your God and your brother must live with you. 25:37 You must not lend him your money at interest and you must not sell him food for profit. 25:38 I am the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan – to be your God.

25:39 “‘If your brother becomes impoverished with regard to you so that he sells himself to you, you must not subject him to slave service. 25:40 He must be with you as a hired worker, as a resident foreigner; he must serve with you until the year of jubilee,