LeviticusChapter 25

Tap any verse to comment or suggest a better wording.

¹Then the LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai. He said, ²"Speak to the Israelites and tell them this. When you enter the land I am giving you, the land itself must keep a Sabbath to the LORD. ³For six years you may plant your fields. You may trim your vineyards and gather their crops. ⁴But the seventh year must be a Sabbath of full rest for the land. It is a Sabbath to the LORD. Do not plant your fields or trim your vineyards that year. ⁵Do not harvest what grows up by itself from the last harvest. Do not pick the grapes from your vines that you did not tend. The land must have a year of full rest. ⁶But whatever the land grows during the Sabbath year will be food for you. It is for you and your male and female servants. It is also for the hired worker and the foreigner who lives with you. ⁷It is for your livestock and the wild animals in your land too. Everything the land grows may be eaten. ⁸Count off seven sets of Sabbath years. That is seven times seven years. These seven sets of years add up to forty-nine years. ⁹Then blow the ram's horn everywhere. Do it on the tenth day of the seventh month. That is the Day of Atonement. Blow the horn all through your land. ¹⁰Set apart the fiftieth year as holy. Announce freedom in the land for everyone who lives there. It will be your Jubilee. In that year each of you will go back to your own land and to your own clan. ¹¹The fiftieth year will be a Jubilee for you. Do not plant the land that year. Do not harvest what grows up by itself. Do not pick grapes from the vines you did not tend. ¹²For it is a Jubilee. It must be holy to you. You may eat only what grows in the field by itself. ¹³In this Year of Jubilee, each of you must go back to your own land. ¹⁴When you sell something to your neighbor or buy something from him, do not cheat each other. ¹⁵When you buy from your neighbor, count the years since the last Jubilee. He must sell to you based on how many harvest years are left. ¹⁶If many years are left, raise the price. If only a few years are left, lower the price. For what he is really selling you is a certain number of harvests. ¹⁷Do not cheat each other. Instead, fear your God. For I am the LORD your God. ¹⁸Keep my laws and be careful to obey my rules. Then you will live safely in the land. ¹⁹The land will give its fruit. You will eat all you want and live safely there. ²⁰You may ask, 'What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or gather our crops?' ²¹But I will send my blessing on you in the sixth year. The land will grow enough crops for three years. ²²In the eighth year you will plant. But you will still be eating from the old harvest. You will eat it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in. ²³The land must never be sold forever. That is because the land is mine. You are only foreigners and guests living with me. ²⁴So for every piece of land you own, you must allow the land to be bought back. ²⁵Suppose your brother becomes poor and sells some of his land. Then his closest relative may come and buy back what his brother sold. ²⁶Or suppose a man has no one to buy it back for him. But later he does well and gets enough money to buy back his land himself. ²⁷Then he must count the years since he sold it. He must pay back what is left to the man who bought it. Then he can go back to his land. ²⁸But if he cannot get enough to pay him back, what he sold will stay with the buyer until the Year of Jubilee. Then in the Jubilee it must be given back. So the man may go back to his land. ²⁹If a man sells a house in a city with walls, he has the right to buy it back for one full year after he sells it. During that year he may buy it back. ³⁰If he does not buy it back by the end of a full year, the house in the walled city belongs to the buyer forever. It will belong to his children after him. It is not to be given back in the Jubilee. ³¹But houses in villages without walls around them are to be treated like open fields. They may be bought back. And they must be given back in the Jubilee. ³²Now about the cities of the Levites. The Levites always have the right to buy back their houses in the cities they own. ³³So what belongs to the Levites may be bought back. If a house in one of their cities is sold, it must be given back in the Jubilee. That is because the houses in the Levites' cities are what they own among the Israelites. ³⁴But the open pastures around their cities must not be sold. They belong to the Levites forever. ³⁵Suppose someone from your own people becomes very poor. He cannot take care of himself among you. Then you must help him as you would help a foreigner or a guest. That way he can keep living among you. ³⁶Do not charge him interest or make a profit from him. Instead, fear your God. Then your fellow Israelite can keep living among you. ³⁷Do not lend him your silver and charge interest. Do not sell him food to make a profit. ³⁸I am the LORD your God. I brought you out of the land of Egypt. I did it to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God. ³⁹Suppose someone from your own people becomes very poor and sells himself to you. Then you must not make him work like a slave. ⁴⁰Let him stay with you like a hired worker or a guest. He will work for you until the Year of Jubilee. ⁴¹Then he and his children must be set free. He may go back to his clan and to the land of his fathers. ⁴²The Israelites are my servants. I brought them out of the land of Egypt. So they must not be sold as slaves. ⁴³Do not rule over them in a harsh way. Instead, fear your God. ⁴⁴Your male and female servants may come from the nations around you. You may buy them from those nations. ⁴⁵You may also buy them from the foreigners living among you. You may buy them from their clans who live among you and were born in your land. They may become your property. ⁴⁶You may leave them to your sons after you as property to own. You may make them slaves for life. But your brothers, the Israelites, are different. No man may rule over his brother in a harsh way. ⁴⁷Suppose a foreigner living among you becomes rich. But someone from your own people living near him becomes very poor. He sells himself to the foreigner or to a member of the foreigner's clan. ⁴⁸After he has sold himself, he still has the right to be bought back. One of his brothers may buy him back. ⁴⁹Or his uncle or cousin may buy him back. Any close relative from his clan may do it. Or if he becomes rich, he may buy himself back. ⁵⁰He and the man who bought him will count the time. They will count from the year he sold himself up to the Year of Jubilee. The price to set him free will be based on the number of years. It will be figured by the daily pay of a hired worker. ⁵¹If many years are left, he must pay back more of the price he was sold for. ⁵²If only a few years are left until the Year of Jubilee, he must figure the price by the years that are left. Then he pays that amount to be set free. ⁵³He must be treated like a worker hired from year to year. You must not let a foreign owner rule over him in a harsh way while you watch. ⁵⁴Even if he is not bought back in any of these ways, he and his children must be set free in the Year of Jubilee. ⁵⁵For the Israelites are my servants. They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God."