THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS

 

Leviticus Chapter 25

1 ¶ And the LORD spoke to Moses in mount Sinai, saying,

2 Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, When you come into the land which I give you, the land shall keep a sabbath to the LORD.

3 Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in its fruit;

4 But the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest for the land, a sabbath for the LORD: you shall neither sow your field, nor prune your vineyard.

5 That which grows of its own accord of your harvest you shall not reap, nor gather the grapes of your unpruned vine: for it is a year of rest for the land.

6 And the sabbath of the land shall provide food for you; for you, and for your servant, and for your maid, and for your hired servant, and for the foreigner who stays with you,

7 And for your cattle, and for the animals that are on your land, all its yield shall be for food.

8 ¶ And you shall count seven sabbaths of years for you, seven times seven years; so that the time of the seven sabbaths of years shall total forty and nine years.

9 Then shall you cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, on the day of atonement you shall make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.

10 And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee to you; when each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family.

11 That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee to you: you shall not sow, nor reap that which grows of itself during it, nor gather the grapes of your unpruned vine in it.

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

13 On the year of this jubilee every man shall return to his possession.

14 And if you sell anything to your neighbor, or buy anything from your neighbor’s hand, you shall not oppress one another:

15 You shall make your purchase from your neighbor according to the number of years after the jubilee, and he shall sell based on the number of harvest years remaining:

16 The greater the number of years before the jubilee the higher the price, and the fewer the number of years the lower the price: because what he is selling to you is the number of harvests.

17 Therefore you shall not oppress one another; but you shall fear your God: for I am the LORD your God.

18 For that reason you shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and perform them; and you shall dwell in the land in safety.

19 And the land shall yield her fruit, and you shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety.

20 And if you shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase:

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

22 And you shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year; until her fruits come in you shall eat of the old store.

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

24 And in all the land of your possession you shall grant a redemption for the land.

25 If your brother has grown poor, and has sold some of his property, and if any of his relatives come to redeem it, then he shall redeem what his brother sold.

26 And if the man has no one to redeem it, and is himself able to redeem it;

27 Then let him count the years of its sale, and restore the overpayment to the man to whom he sold it; that he may return to his possession.

28 But if he is not able to restore it to him, then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of him who has bought it until the year of jubilee: and in the jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his possession.

29 And if a man sells a residence in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; within a full year he may redeem it.

30 And if it is not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be established forever to him who bought it throughout his generations: it shall not be released in the jubilee.

31 But the houses of the villages which have no wall round about them shall be counted as the fields of the country: they may be redeemed, and they shall be released in the jubilee.

32 Nevertheless the cities of the Levites, and the houses in the cities of their possession, may be redeemed by the Levites at any time.

33 And if a man makes a purchase from the Levites, then the house that was sold, and the city of his property, shall be released in the year of jubilee: for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their property among the children of Israel.

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

35 And if your brother has grown poor, and cannot sustain himself among you; then you shall relieve him: maintaining him as a foreigner, or a traveler; that he may continue to live with you.

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

37 You shall not lend him your money with interest, or sell him your food for profit.

38 I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.

39 ¶ And if your brother who lives with you has grown poor, and is sold to you; you shall not compel him to serve as a slave:

40 But he shall be with you as a hired servant, and as a traveler, and shall serve you until the year of jubilee:

41 And then he shall depart from you, both he and his children with him, and shall return to his own family, and return to the property of his fathers.

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

43 You shall not rule over him with harshness; but shall fear your God.

44 Both your male, and female slaves, which you shall have, shall be from the heathen that are around you; from them you may buy bondmen and bondmaids.

45 Moreover of the children of the foreigners who live among you, of them you may buy, and of their families that are with you, whom they fathered in your land: and they shall be your possession.

46 And you shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them as a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, you shall not rule one over another with harshness.

47 And if a sojourner or stranger grows rich by you, and your brother who lives by him grows poor, and sells himself to the foreigner or traveler with you, or to a member of the stranger’s family:

48 After he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him:

49 Either his uncle, or his uncle’s son, may redeem him, or any who is near of kin to him of his family may redeem him; or if he be able, he may redeem himself.

50 And he shall calculate with the man who bought him from the year that he was sold to him to the year of jubilee: and the price of his sale shall be according to the number of years, it shall be calculated according to the time of a hired servant.

51 If there are still many years remaining, he shall calculate the price of his redemption in proportion to the amount that he was bought for.

52 And if there remain only a few years until the year of jubilee, then he will come to terms with him, and he will pay back a corresponding price of redemption.

53 And he shall be with him as a servant hired yearly: and he shall not rule with harshness over him in your sight.

54 And if he is not redeemed during these years, then he shall go out in the year of jubilee, both he, and his children with him.

55 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 the LORD your God.