Leviticus 25

1Yahweh spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai:

2“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: When you come into the land that I am giving you, the land is to observe a Sabbath to Yahweh.

3For six years you are to sow your field, and for six years you are to prune your vineyard and gather in its produce.

4But in the seventh year the land is to have a Sabbath of complete rest, a Sabbath to Yahweh. Do not sow your field or prune your vineyard.

5Do not reap what grows on its own after your harvest, and do not gather the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of complete rest.

6Whatever the land yields during its Sabbath will be food for you—for yourself, your male and female servants, your hired worker, and the temporary resident who lives among you,

7and for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. All its produce may be eaten.

8Count off seven Sabbaths of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven Sabbaths of years amounts to forty-nine years.

9Then on the tenth day of the seventh month you are to sound the ram’s horn loudly; on the Day of Atonement you are to sound the horn throughout your land.

10Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It is to be a Jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your own property, and each of you is to return to your own clan.

11The fiftieth year is to be a Jubilee for you. Do not sow, and do not reap what grows on its own or gather the grapes of the untended vines.

12For it is a Jubilee; it is to be holy to you. Eat what the field produces.

13In this year of Jubilee each of you is to return to your own property.

14If you sell anything to your neighbor or buy anything from your neighbor, do not wrong one another.

15You are to buy from your neighbor on the basis of the number of years since the Jubilee, and he is to sell to you on the basis of the number of years of harvests.

16If there are many years, you are to increase the price, and if there are few years, you are to reduce the price, because what he is selling you is the number of harvests.

17Do not wrong one another, but fear your God, for I am Yahweh your God.

18Carry out my statutes, and keep my ordinances and do them, and you will live securely in the land.

19Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live securely in it.

20If you ask, ‘What will we eat in the seventh year, since we are not to sow or gather in our crops?’

21I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that the land will yield enough produce for three years.

22When you sow in the eighth year, you will still be eating from the old produce; you will eat the old until its harvest comes in during the ninth year.

23The land must not be sold permanently, for the land is mine; you are foreigners and temporary residents with me.

24Throughout the land you possess, you must provide for the redemption of the land.

25If your brother becomes poor and sells some of his property, his nearest relative is to come as his redeemer and redeem what his brother has sold.

26If a man has no one to redeem it for him, but he himself prospers and acquires enough to redeem it,

27he is to calculate the years since he sold it, refund the balance to the man he sold it to, and return to his property.

28But if he cannot acquire enough to repay him, what he sold will remain in the hands of the buyer until the year of Jubilee. It will be released in the Jubilee, and he will return to his property.

29If a man sells a house to live in within a walled city, he keeps the right to redeem it until a full year after its sale; for a full year he may redeem it.

30If it is not redeemed before a full year has passed, the house in the walled city will belong permanently to the buyer and his descendants. It will not be released in the Jubilee.

31But houses in villages that have no walls around them are to be counted as part of the open country. They may be redeemed, and they are to be released in the Jubilee.

32As for the cities of the Levites, the houses in the cities they possess, the Levites always have the right of redemption.

33Whatever is redeemed from the Levites—a house sold in a city they possess—is to be released in the Jubilee, for the houses in the cities of the Levites are their property among the Israelites.

34But the fields of pastureland around their cities must not be sold, for that is their permanent possession.

35If your brother becomes poor and cannot support himself among you, you must help him as you would a foreigner or a temporary resident, so that he can go on living among you.

36Do not take interest or profit from him, but fear your God, so that your brother may go on living among you.

37Do not lend him your money at interest or give him your food for profit.

38I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.

39If your brother becomes poor among you and sells himself to you, do not make him work as a slave.

40He is to be with you like a hired worker or a temporary resident; he is to work for you until the year of Jubilee.

41Then he and his children with him are to be released from you, and he is to go back to his own clan and return to the property of his ancestors.

42For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they must not be sold as slaves are sold.

43Do not rule over him harshly, but fear your God.

44As for the male and female slaves you may have, you may buy male and female slaves from the nations around you.

45You may also buy them from the children of the temporary residents who live among you and from their clans who are with you, those born in your land, and they may become your property.

46You may leave them to your children after you to inherit as property; you may make them your slaves for all time. But over your brothers, the Israelites, you must not rule harshly, one over another.

47If a foreigner or temporary resident among you becomes rich, and your brother near him becomes poor and sells himself to the foreigner or resident among you, or to a member of the foreigner’s clan,

48he still has the right of redemption after he has sold himself. One of his brothers may redeem him,

49or his uncle or his uncle’s son may redeem him, or any close relative from his clan may redeem him. Or if he prospers, he may redeem himself.

50He and his buyer are to count the time from the year he sold himself to him up to the year of Jubilee. The price of his sale is to correspond to the number of years; his time with the buyer is to be reckoned like that of a hired worker.

51If many years still remain, he must pay for his redemption in proportion to them, out of the price he was bought for.

52If only a few years remain until the year of Jubilee, he is to calculate it with him and pay for his redemption in proportion to his years.

53He is to be with him like a worker hired from year to year; the buyer must not rule over him harshly in your sight.

54If he is not redeemed in any of these ways, he and his children with him are to be released 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 Yahweh your God.