Leviticus 25

25 ¹Our Father spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying:

²"Speak to the Israelites and say to them: When you enter the land I am giving you, the land is to keep a sabbath rest to me. ³For six years sow your field, six years prune your vineyard and gather its fruit. ⁴But the seventh year is a sabbath of full rest for the land, a sabbath to me—don't sow your field or prune your vineyard. ^a a v4 Every seventh year the land itself rested — no sowing or pruning — trusting our Father to provide. It extends the weekly sabbath to the soil. ⁵Don't reap what grows on its own, or gather grapes from your unpruned vine; the land gets a year of complete rest. ⁶The land's sabbath will feed you—yourself, your male and female servants, hired hand, and the foreigner living with you, ⁷and for your livestock and the wild animals in your land—all it yields is food.

Counting Toward Jubilee

⁸"You are to count seven sabbaths of years, seven times seven years, making forty-nine years in all. ⁹Blow the ram's horn in blasts on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement, sound it throughout all your land. ¹⁰Make the fiftieth year holy: proclaim freedom in the land for all its residents. It is a jubilee for you—each returns to their property, each to their family. ^b b v10 The Jubilee was a fiftieth-year release: debts cleared, servants freed, and family land returned to its original owners — a regular reset our Father built into the life of his people. ¹¹The fiftieth year is your jubilee: sow nothing, reap no self-grown grain, gather no untended vines. ¹²For it is a jubilee; it is to be holy to you. Eat only what the field produces.

¹³"In this Year of Jubilee each of you are to return to your own property.

¹⁴"If you sell or buy from your neighbor, do not cheat one another. ¹⁵Buy from your neighbor by the years since the jubilee; he sells to you by the years of harvests. ¹⁶Raise the price for more years, lower it for fewer, since he's selling you a number of harvests. ¹⁷You shall not wrong one another, but you are to fear your Father, for I am your Father.

¹⁸"Follow my statutes, keep my rules, and obey them, and you will live securely in the land. ¹⁹The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell in it securely. ²⁰If you ask, 'What will we eat in the seventh year, since we won't sow or gather our produce?' ²¹I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, yielding crop for three years. ²²You will plant in the eighth year but still eat old crop; until the ninth year's harvest comes in, you will eat the old.

The Land Belongs to Our Father

²³"The land must not be sold permanently, for it is mine; for you are only foreigners and temporary residents with me. ²⁴Throughout the land you possess, you are to grant a right of redemption for the land.

²⁵"If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his land, his nearest redeemer must come redeem what his brother sold. ^c c v25 The nearest redeemer was the closest family member with the right and duty to buy back property sold under hardship. ²⁶If a man has no redeemer but prospers and finds enough to redeem it, ²⁷he calculates the years since the sale, returns the balance to the buyer, and returns to his property. ²⁸But if he lacks means to repay him, what he sold stays with the buyer until Jubilee; it releases then, and he returns to his property.

²⁹"If someone sells a house in a walled city, redemption rights last a full year from the sale. For that whole year the seller keeps this right. ³⁰If not redeemed within a full year, the house in the walled city belongs to its buyer permanently, generation after generation; it isn't released at the jubilee. ³¹Houses in villages without walls count as open fields; they may be redeemed and go free at Jubilee.

³²"The Levites may always redeem the houses in the Levite cities they possess. ³³If a Levite doesn't redeem it, the house sold in his city is released at jubilee, for houses in Levite cities are their property among Israel. ³⁴But the pasture fields around their cities cannot be sold; they are their permanent possession.

Your Brother Who Falls

³⁵"If your brother becomes poor and cannot support himself among you, help him like a foreigner or resident, so he may live among you. ³⁶Charge him no interest or profit, but fear your Father, so your brother may live alongside you. ³⁷You shall not lend him your money at interest or give him your food for profit. ³⁸I am your Father, who brought you out of Egypt to give you Canaan and be your Father.

³⁹"If your brother beside you becomes poor and sells himself to you, don't make him work as a slave. ⁴⁰He will be with you as a hired worker, as a resident, serving with you until Jubilee Year. ⁴¹Then he and his children go free from you, returning to his clan and ancestral property. ⁴²For they are my servants, whom I brought from Egypt; they must not be sold as slaves are sold. ⁴³You shall not rule over him harshly, but you are to fear your Father.

⁴⁴"As for your male and female slaves: you may buy them from the nations around you. ⁴⁵Also buy from the foreign residents among you, and from their families with you, born in your land; they become your property. ⁴⁶You may leave them to your children as inherited property, holding them for life. But over your fellow Israelites you must not rule harshly, one over another.

⁴⁷"If a foreigner or resident among you prospers and your brother becomes poor beside him, selling himself to the foreigner or to a branch of the foreigner's family, ⁴⁸he may be redeemed after he has sold himself. One of his brothers may redeem him. ⁴⁹His uncle or cousin may redeem him, or a close relative from his clan may redeem him; or if he affords it, he redeems himself. ⁵⁰He and his buyer is to reckon from the year he sold himself to the Jubilee; the price follows the years, like a hired worker's wage. ⁵¹If many years remain, he refunds a proportionate amount of his purchase price as his redemption payment. ⁵²If few years remain until Jubilee, he must calculate and refund his redemption price accordingly. ⁵³He is to be with him as one hired year by year, not ruled over harshly in your sight. ⁵⁴If he isn't redeemed this way, he and his children go free together in the Jubilee Year. ⁵⁵Israel's people are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt. I am your Father."