Saturday Year

25 Speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, the Lord commanded him 2 to convey these words to the children of Israel: "When you come to the land which I am giving you, let that land itself keep the Sabbaths of the Lord. 3For six years you shall sow your field, prune your vines, and reap the harvest. 4In the seventh year, the earth also shall have a complete Sabbath rest,950 the Sabbath of the Lord: you shall not sow your fields, nor prune your vines. 5Do not reap even that which has grown of its own accord after the harvest, and do not pluck bunches from unpruned vines. Your Earth needs a year of complete peace. 6But you will be able to eat what the land grows during its Sabbath day—you yourselves, and your servants, and your maidservants, and the hired servants, and the strangers who dwell among you, 7 and your cattle and the beasts that dwell in your country—all the harvest of that year will serve as food for all.

Jubilee Year

8Count seven such Sabbath years, that is, seven times seven years, forty-nine years. 9Then on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement, you shall sound a loud trumpet. Sound the trumpet loudly throughout all your land. 10Thus it behooves you to declare the fiftieth[951] year holy, and to grant liberty in your land to all its inhabitants. Let it be the year of jubilee, when each one comes to his own plot of land, each one returns to his kinship. 11 Let the fiftieth year be a jubilee unto you: ye shall not sow or harvest that which has grown of its own accord in the field, nor be engaged in harvesting grapes from the unpruned vines, 12for the year of jubilee shall be sacred unto you. You can eat directly from the field what has grown there by itself.

13In the year of jubilee, everyone must again become the owner of his family property. 14 Therefore, if it happens that you sell anything to your neighbor or buy from him, do not profit for yourselves to the detriment of another. 15He is to buy land from his neighbor according to the number of years that have passed since the year of jubilee, and he must sell it according to the number of years of harvest remaining. 16The greater the number of years, the higher the price; the less, the lower: after all, the number of crops is sold. 17Do not rob one another, but fear your God. I am the Lord your God.

18Obey my statutes and keep my commandments faithfully, and you will live safely in the land that has been given to you. 19The earth will bear its fruit, so that you will eat enough and live safely in it.

20You may ask, "What shall we eat during the seventh year, when we neither sow nor reap the harvest?" 21In the sixth year, I will bestow upon you such blessings that the earth will bring forth a harvest for three whole years. 22In the eighth year you will sow again, but you will still live on that old harvest, until the harvest in the ninth year.

Return of the sold land and the sold house

23No land can be sold forever, for the land is mine, and you are my guests and temporary residents of it. 24 Wherefore in all the land which ye now possess, ye shall secure the right of redemption. 25If one of you becomes poor and is forced to sell his land, then his next of kin must come and redeem what the poor man has sold. 26 If, however, he has no one to redeem the land, and some time later he himself is able to obtain sufficient funds to redeem it, 27 then the value of the land for the years that have elapsed since the sale must be deducted, and after paying the remaining difference to the purchaser, he may return to his plot of land. 28But if he could not find the necessary amount for redemption, then what was sold would remain in the hands of the buyer until the year of jubilee. In the jubilee year, it will again become the property of the first owner, and he will be able to return and live on his land.

29And if anyone sells a house within the city limits, within its walls, he has the right to redeem this house within a year from the date of sale. At this time, he retains such a right. 30But if a house within the city limits, within the walls of the city, is not redeemed within the course of a year, it will go to the buyer forever, in full possession of himself and his descendants, and will not be returned even in the year of jubilee. 31Houses in unwalled villages, however, are considered part of the land. They are subject to redemption and must be returned in the jubilee year.

32But the Levites always have a right to redeem their property in their cities, 33which any of them may exercise; A house sold in the city allotted to them will be returned to its former owner, Levite, in the year of jubilee. For the houses in the cities of the Levites are their property among the children of Israel. 34 But the pasture fields around the cities of the Levites are not for sale at all, because they are given to the Levites for eternal possession.

35If your Israelite brother falls into poverty and can no longer live in your community on his own, you must support him as you would support a stranger who has come to live with you, and let him live near you. 36Do not take exorbitant interest from him, do not profit from him. Fear your God: let your brother dwell near you, 37do not lend him your money at interest, and do not lend him the bread you lend him for profit. 38I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt to give you the lands of Canaan and become your God.

39But if your Israelite brother falls into such poverty that he sells himself to you for debts, do not force him to work like a slave. 40Let him live with you as a hireling or as a exile, and let him serve you until the year of jubilee, 41when he will be able to leave you with his children, and return again to his generation, to the land of his fathers. 42For those whom I brought out of Egypt are my servants. They cannot be sold as slaves are sold. 43Do not treat him harshly, but fear your God.

44As for the male or female servant who might belong to you, you may buy them from the nations that live around you. 45You may also buy as slaves the children of the emigrants, of those who live with you as strangers, the children of their families born in your lands. They will become your property, 46and you will be able to pass them on to your children as property. Purchased slaves can remain slaves with you forever. But as for your brethren, the children of Israel, no man has the right to rule over his brother, and to be cruel to him.