Leviticus 25:1--27:34

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, 25:41 but then he may go free, he and his children with him, and may return to his family and to the property of his ancestors. 25:42 Since they are my servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt, they must not be sold in a slave sale. 25:43 You must not rule over him harshly, but you must fear your God.

25:44 “‘As for your male and female slaves who may belong to you – you may buy male and female slaves from the nations all around you. 25:45 Also you may buy slaves from the children of the foreigners who reside with you, and from their families that are with you, whom they have fathered in your land, they may become your property. 25:46 You may give them as inheritance to your children after you to possess as property. You may enslave them perpetually. However, as for your brothers the Israelites, no man may rule over his brother harshly.

25:47 “‘If a resident foreigner who is with you prospers and your brother becomes impoverished with regard to him so that he sells himself to a resident foreigner who is with you or to a member of a foreigner’s family, 25:48 after he has sold himself he retains a right of redemption. One of his brothers may redeem him, 25:49 or his uncle or his cousin may redeem him, or anyone of the rest of his blood relatives – his family – may redeem him, or if he prospers he may redeem himself. 25:50 He must calculate with the one who bought him the number of years from the year he sold himself to him until the jubilee year, and the cost of his sale must correspond to the number of years, according to the rate of wages a hired worker would have earned while with him. 25:51 If there are still many years, in keeping with them he must refund most of the cost of his purchase for his redemption, 25:52 but if only a few years remain until the jubilee, he must calculate for himself in keeping with the remaining years and refund it for his redemption. 25:53 He must be with the one who bought him like a yearly hired worker. The one who bought him must not rule over him harshly in your sight. 25:54 If, however, he is not redeemed in these ways, he must go free in the jubilee year, he and his children with him, 25:55 because the Israelites are my own servants; they are my servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

Exhortation to Obedience

26:1 “‘You must not make for yourselves idols, so you must not set up for yourselves a carved image or a pillar, and you must not place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down before it, for I am the Lord your God. 26:2 You must keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord.

The Benefits of Obedience

26:3 “‘If you walk in my statutes and are sure to obey my commandments, 26:4 I will give you your rains in their time so that the land will give its yield and the trees of the field will produce their fruit. 26:5 Threshing season will extend for you until the season for harvesting grapes, and the season for harvesting grapes will extend until sowing season, so you will eat your bread until you are satisfied, and you will live securely in your land. 26:6 I will grant peace in the land so that you will lie down to sleep without anyone terrifying you. I will remove harmful animals from the land, and no sword of war will pass through your land. 26:7 You will pursue your enemies and they will fall before you by the sword. 26:8 Five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue ten thousand, and your enemies will fall before you by the sword. 26:9 I will turn to you, make you fruitful, multiply you, and maintain my covenant with you. 26:10 You will still be eating stored produce from the previous year and will have to clean out what is stored from the previous year to make room for new.

26:11 “‘I will put my tabernacle in your midst and I will not abhor you. 26:12 I will walk among you, and I will be your God and you will be my people. 26:13 I am the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from being their slaves, and I broke the bars of your yoke and caused you to walk upright.

The Consequences of Disobedience

26:14 “‘If, however, you do not obey me and keep all these commandments – 26:15 if you reject my statutes and abhor my regulations so that you do not keep all my commandments and you break my covenant – 26:16 I for my part will do this to you: I will inflict horror on you, consumption and fever, which diminish eyesight and drain away the vitality of life. You will sow your seed in vain because your enemies will eat it. 26:17 I will set my face against you. You will be struck down before your enemies, those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when there is no one pursuing you.

26:18 “‘If, in spite of all these things, you do not obey me, I will discipline you seven times more on account of your sins. 26:19 I will break your strong pride and make your sky like iron and your land like bronze. 26:20 Your strength will be used up in vain, your land will not give its yield, and the trees of the land will not produce their fruit.

26:21 “‘If you walk in hostility against me and are not willing to obey me, I will increase your affliction seven times according to your sins. 26:22 I will send the wild animals against you and they will bereave you of your children, annihilate your cattle, and diminish your population so that your roads will become deserted.

26:23 “‘If in spite of these things you do not allow yourselves to be disciplined and you walk in hostility against me, 26:24 I myself will also walk in hostility against you and strike you seven times on account of your sins. 26:25 I will bring on you an avenging sword, a covenant vengeance. Although you will gather together into your cities, I will send pestilence among you and you will be given into enemy hands. 26:26 When I break off your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in one oven; they will ration your bread by weight, and you will eat and not be satisfied.

26:27 “‘If in spite of this you do not obey me but walk in hostility against me, 26:28 I will walk in hostile rage against you and I myself will also discipline you seven times on account of your sins. 26:29 You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. 26:30 I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars, and I will stack your dead bodies on top of the lifeless bodies of your idols. I will abhor you. 26:31 I will lay your cities waste and make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will refuse to smell your soothing aromas. 26:32 I myself will make the land desolate and your enemies who live in it will be appalled. 26:33 I will scatter you among the nations and unsheathe the sword after you, so your land will become desolate and your cities will become a waste.

26:34 “‘Then the land will make up for its Sabbaths all the days it lies desolate while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land will rest and make up its Sabbaths. 26:35 All the days of the desolation it will have the rest it did not have on your Sabbaths when you lived on it.

26:36 “‘As for the ones who remain among you, I will bring despair into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a blowing leaf will pursue them, and they will flee as one who flees the sword and fall down even though there is no pursuer. 26:37 They will stumble over each other as those who flee before a sword, though there is no pursuer, and there will be no one to take a stand for you before your enemies. 26:38 You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will consume you.

Restoration through Confession and Repentance

26:39 “‘As for the ones who remain among you, they will rot away because of their iniquity in the lands of your enemies, and they will also rot away because of their ancestors’ iniquities which are with them. 26:40 However, when they confess their iniquity and their ancestors’ iniquity which they committed by trespassing against me, by which they also walked in hostility against me 26:41 (and I myself will walk in hostility against them and bring them into the land of their enemies), and then their uncircumcised hearts become humbled and they make up for their iniquity, 26:42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob and also my covenant with Isaac and also my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 26:43 The land will be abandoned by them in order that it may make up for its Sabbaths while it is made desolate without them, and they will make up for their iniquity because they have rejected my regulations and have abhorred my statutes. 26:44 In spite of this, however, when they are in the land of their enemies I will not reject them and abhor them to make a complete end of them, to break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God. 26:45 I will remember for them the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out from the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the Lord.’”

Summary Colophon

26:46 These are the statutes, regulations, and instructions which the Lord established between himself and the Israelites at Mount Sinai through Moses.

Redemption of Vowed People

27:1 The Lord spoke to Moses: 27:2 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When a man makes a special votive offering based on the conversion value of persons to the Lord, 27:3 the conversion value of the male from twenty years old up to sixty years old is fifty shekels by the standard of the sanctuary shekel. 27:4 If the person is a female, the conversion value is thirty shekels. 27:5 If the person is from five years old up to twenty years old, the conversion value of the male is twenty shekels, and for the female ten shekels. 27:6 If the person is one month old up to five years old, the conversion value of the male is five shekels of silver, and for the female the conversion value is three shekels of silver. 27:7 If the person is from sixty years old and older, if he is a male the conversion value is fifteen shekels, and for the female ten shekels. 27:8 If he is too poor to pay the conversion value, he must stand the person before the priest and the priest will establish his conversion value; according to what the man who made the vow can afford, the priest will establish his conversion value.

Redemption of Vowed Animals

27:9 “‘If what is vowed is a kind of animal from which an offering may be presented to the Lord, anything which he gives to the Lord from this kind of animal will be holy. 27:10 He must not replace or exchange it, good for bad or bad for good, and if he does indeed exchange one animal for another animal, then both the original animal and its substitute will be holy. 27:11 If what is vowed is an unclean animal from which an offering must not be presented to the Lord, then he must stand the animal before the priest, 27:12 and the priest will establish its conversion value, whether good or bad. According to the assessed conversion value of the priest, thus it will be. 27:13 If, however, the person who made the vow redeems the animal, he must add one fifth to its conversion value.

Redemption of Vowed Houses

27:14 “‘If a man consecrates his house as holy to the Lord, the priest will establish its conversion value, whether good or bad. Just as the priest establishes its conversion value, thus it will stand. 27:15 If the one who consecrates it redeems his house, he must add to it one fifth of its conversion value in silver, and it will belong to him.

Redemption of Vowed Fields

27:16 “‘If a man consecrates to the Lord some of his own landed property, the conversion value must be calculated in accordance with the amount of seed needed to sow it, a homer of barley seed being priced at fifty shekels of silver. 27:17 If he consecrates his field in the jubilee year, the conversion value will stand, 27:18 but if he consecrates his field after the jubilee, the priest will calculate the price for him according to the years that are left until the next jubilee year, and it will be deducted from the conversion value. 27:19 If, however, the one who consecrated the field redeems it, he must add to it one fifth of the conversion price and it will belong to him. 27:20 If he does not redeem the field, but sells the field to someone else, he may never redeem it. 27:21 When it reverts in the jubilee, the field will be holy to the Lord like a permanently dedicated field; it will become the priest’s property.

27:22 “‘If he consecrates to the Lord a field he has purchased, which is not part of his own landed property, 27:23 the priest will calculate for him the amount of its conversion value until the jubilee year, and he must pay the conversion value on that jubilee day as something that is holy to the Lord. 27:24 In the jubilee year the field will return to the one from whom he bought it, the one to whom it belongs as landed property. 27:25 Every conversion value must be calculated by the standard of the sanctuary shekel; twenty gerahs to the shekel.

Redemption of the Firstborn

27:26 “‘Surely no man may consecrate a firstborn that already belongs to the Lord as a firstborn among the animals; whether it is an ox or a sheep, it belongs to the Lord. 27:27 If, however, it is among the unclean animals, he may ransom it according to its conversion value and must add one fifth to it, but if it is not redeemed it must be sold according to its conversion value.

Things Permanently Dedicated to the Lord

27:28 “‘Surely anything which a man permanently dedicates to the Lord from all that belongs to him, whether from people, animals, or his landed property, must be neither sold nor redeemed; anything permanently dedicated is most holy to the Lord. 27:29 Any human being who is permanently dedicated must not be ransomed; such a person must be put to death.

Redemption of the Tithe

27:30 “‘Any tithe of the land, from the grain of the land or from the fruit of the trees, belongs to the Lord; it is holy to the Lord. 27:31 If a man redeems part of his tithe, however, he must add one fifth to it. 27:32 All the tithe of herd or flock, everything which passes under the rod, the tenth one will be holy to the Lord. 27:33 The owner must not examine the animals to distinguish between good and bad, and he must not exchange it. If, however, he does exchange it, both the original animal and its substitute will be holy. It must not be redeemed.’”

Final Colophon

27:34 These are the commandments which the Lord commanded Moses to tell the Israelites at Mount Sinai.