Leviticus 25

Yahweh spoke to Moses in Mount Sinai, saying,

Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them, When you come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a Sabbath to Yahweh.

Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in the fruits of it;

but in the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to Yahweh: you shall neither sow your field, nor prune your vineyard.

That which grows of itself of your harvest you shall not reap, and the grapes of your undressed vine you shall not gather: it shall be a year of solemn rest for the land.

The Sabbath of the land shall be for food for you; for you, and for your servant and for your maid, and for your hired servant and for your stranger, who sojourn with you.

For your cattle, and for the animals that are in your land, shall all the increase of it be for food.

You shall number seven Sabbaths of years to you, seven times seven years; and there shall be to you the days of seven Sabbaths of years, even forty-nine years.

Then shall you send abroad the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month; in the day of atonement shall you send abroad the trumpet throughout all your land.

You shall make the fiftieth year holy, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants of it: it shall be a jubilee to you; and you shall return every man to his possession, and you shall return every man to his family.

A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be to you: you shall not sow, neither reap that which grows of itself in it, nor gather [the grapes] in it of the undressed vines.

For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat the increase of it out of the field.

In this year of jubilee you shall return every man to his possession.

If you sell anything to your neighbor, or buy of your neighbor’s hand, you shall not wrong one another.

According to the number of years after the jubilee you shall buy of your neighbor, [and] according to the number of years of the crops he shall sell to you.

According to the length of the years you shall increase the price of it, and according to the shortness of the years you shall diminish the price of it; for the number of the crops does he sell to you.

You shall not wrong one another; but you shall fear your God: for I am Yahweh your God.

Therefore you shall do my statutes, and keep my ordinances and do them; and you shall dwell in the land in safety.

The land shall yield its fruit, and you shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety.

If you shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? Behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase;

then I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for the three years.

You shall sow the eighth year, and eat of the fruits, the old store; until the ninth year, until its fruits come in, you shall eat the old store.

The land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is mine: for you are strangers and sojourners with me.

In all the land of your possession you shall grant a redemption for the land.

If your brother be grew poor, and sell some of his possession, then shall his kinsman who is next to him come, and shall redeem that which his brother has sold.

If a man have no one to redeem it, and he be grew rich and find sufficient to redeem it;

then let him reckon the years of the sale of it, and restore the surplus to the man to whom he sold it; and he shall return to his possession.

But if he isn’t able to get it back for himself, then that which he has sold shall remain in the hand of him who has bought it until the year of jubilee: and in the jubilee it shall go out, and he shall return to his possession.

If a man sell a dwelling-house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; for a full year shall he have the right of redemption.

If it isn’t redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be made sure in perpetuity to him who bought it, throughout his generations: it shall not go out in the jubilee.

But the houses of the villages which have no wall round about them shall be reckoned with the fields of the country: they may be redeemed, and they shall go out in the jubilee.

Nevertheless the cities of the Levites, the houses of the cities of their possession, may the Levites redeem at any time.

If one of the Levites redeem, then the house that was sold, and the city of his possession, shall go out in the jubilee; for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel.

But the field of the suburbs of their cities may not be sold; for it is their perpetual possession.

If your brother has grown poor, and his hand fail with you; then you shall uphold him: [as] a stranger and a sojourner shall he live with you.

Take no interest of him or increase, but fear your God; that your brother may live with you.

You shall not give him your money on interest, nor give him your victuals for increase.

I am Yahweh your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, [and] to be your God.

If your brother has grown poor with you, and sell himself to you; you shall not make him to serve as a bond-servant.

As a hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with you; he shall serve with you to the year of jubilee:

then shall he go out from you, he and his children with him, and shall return to his own family, and to the possession of his fathers shall he return.

For they are my servants, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondservants.

You shall not rule over him with rigor, but shall fear your God.

As for your bondservants, and your bondmaids, whom you shall have; of the nations that are round about you, of them shall you buy bondservants and bondmaids.

Moreover of the children of the strangers who sojourn among you, of them shall you buy, and of their families who are with you, which they have conceived in your land: and they shall be your possession.

You shall make them an inheritance for your children after you, to hold for a possession; of them shall you take your bondservants forever: but over your brothers the children of Israel you shall not rule, one over another, with rigor.

If a stranger or sojourner with you has grown rich, and your brother has grown poor beside him, and sell himself to the stranger [or] sojourner with you, or to the stock of the stranger’s family;

after that he is sold he may be redeemed: one of his brothers may redeem him;

or his uncle, or his uncle’s son, may redeem him, or any who is a close relative to him of his family may redeem him; or if he has grown rich, he may redeem himself.

He shall reckon with him who bought him from the year that he sold himself to him to the year of jubilee: and the price of his sale shall be according to the number of years; according to the time of a hired servant shall he be with him.

If there be yet many years, according to them he shall give back the price of his redemption out of the money that he was bought for.

If there remain but few years to the year of jubilee, then he shall reckon with him; according to his years shall he give back the price of his redemption.

As a servant hired year by year shall he be with him: he shall not rule with rigor over him in your sight.

If he isn’t redeemed by these [means], then he shall go out in the year of jubilee, he, and his children with him.

For to me the children of Israel are servants; they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I am Yahweh your God.