Leviticus 25

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

The Land's Sabbath Rest

² Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land itself shall observe a sabbath rest to me. ³ For six years you may sow your field, and for six years prune your vineyard and gather its fruit. ⁴ But in the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath of solemn rest, a sabbath to me: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. ¹ 1 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. ⁵ You shall not reap what grows on its own, and you shall not gather the grapes of your untended vine; it shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. ⁶ The sabbath of the land shall provide food for you—for yourself, your male and female servants, your hired worker, and the foreigner who lives among you, ⁷ and for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. Everything it produces shall be for food.

Counting Toward Jubilee

⁸ You shall count seven sabbaths of years, seven times seven years, making forty-nine years in all.

The Year of Jubilee

⁹ Then sound the ram's horn loudly on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall sound the horn throughout all your land. ¹⁰ Set the fiftieth year apart as holy and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: each of you shall return to your own property, and each of you to your own family. ² 2 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. ¹¹ That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you: you shall not sow, nor reap what grows on its own, nor gather from the untended vines. ¹² For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You shall eat only what the field itself produces.

Return to Your Own

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

¹⁴ If you sell anything to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another. ¹⁵ The price you pay your neighbor shall be based on the number of years since the jubilee, and the number of harvest years he sells you shall determine the price. ¹⁶ If the years are many, you shall increase the price, and if the years are few, you shall reduce it, for it is the number of harvests he is selling to you. ¹⁷ You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your Father, for I am your Father.

Our Father's Promise of Security

¹⁸ You shall carry out my statutes and keep my rules and follow them, and you will dwell securely in the land. ¹⁹ The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell in it securely. ²⁰ And if you say, "What shall we eat in the seventh year, since we may not sow or bring in our harvest?"— ²¹ I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. ²² When you sow in the eighth year, you will still be eating from the old crop; until the ninth year, until its harvest comes in, you will eat from the old crop.

The Land Belongs to Our Father

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

Redeeming the Land

²⁴ Throughout the land you possess, you shall grant a right of redemption for the land.

²⁵ If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his property, his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his brother has sold. ³ 3 v25 The nearest redeemer was the closest family member with the right and duty to buy back property sold under hardship. ²⁶ If a man has no redeemer but prospers and finds enough to redeem it, ²⁷ let him calculate the years since the sale, refund the balance to the one he sold it to, and return to his property. ²⁸ But if he cannot find enough to repay him, what he sold shall remain in the possession of the buyer until the Year of Jubilee; in the jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his property.

²⁹ If a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city, he may redeem it within a year of its sale; for a full year he shall have the right of redemption. ³⁰ If it is not redeemed within a full year, the house in the walled city shall belong permanently to the buyer throughout his generations; it shall not be released in the jubilee. ³¹ But houses in villages with no walls around them shall be treated as the open country: they may be redeemed, and they shall be released in the jubilee.

³² As for the cities of the Levites, the Levites may redeem at any time the houses in the cities they possess. ³³ And if one of the Levites does not redeem, then the house that was sold in the city he possesses shall be released in the jubilee, for the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the people of Israel. ³⁴ But the fields of pastureland around their cities may not be sold, for that is their permanent possession.

Your Brother Who Falls

³⁵ If your brother becomes poor and cannot support himself among you, you shall support him as you would a foreigner or resident, so that he may live alongside you.

No Profit from the Poor

³⁶ Take no interest or profit from him, but fear your Father, so that your brother may live alongside you. ³⁷ You shall not lend him your money at interest or give him your food for profit. ³⁸ I am your Father, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your Father.

Brothers, Not Slaves

³⁹ If your brother becomes poor while living with you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave. ⁴⁰ He shall be with you as a hired worker and as a resident; he shall serve you until the Year of Jubilee. ⁴¹ Then he shall go free from you, he and his children with him, and return to his own family and to his ancestral property. ⁴² For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves are sold. ⁴³ You shall not rule over him harshly, but you shall fear your Father.

⁴⁴ As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from the nations around you. ⁴⁵ You may also buy from the foreigners residing among you and from their clans that are with you, who are born in your land; they may become your property. ⁴⁶ You may leave them as an inheritance to your children after you, to hold as a possession; you may make them serve you forever. But over your brothers, the people of Israel, you shall not rule with harshness, one over another.

Bought Back from a Foreigner

⁴⁷ If a foreigner or resident among you becomes rich, and your brother who lives near him becomes poor and sells himself to the foreigner residing among you, or to a member of the foreigner's clan, ⁴⁸ he may be redeemed after he has sold himself. One of his brothers may redeem him, ⁴⁹ or his uncle or his cousin may redeem him, or a close relative from his clan may redeem him; or if he prospers, he may redeem himself. ⁵⁰ He shall calculate with his buyer from the year he sold himself to the Year of Jubilee, and the price of his sale shall be based on the number of years, as for a hired worker. ⁵¹ If many years remain, he shall refund a proportionate amount of his purchase price as his redemption payment. ⁵² If few years remain until the Year of Jubilee, he shall calculate accordingly and refund the price of his redemption. ⁵³ He shall be with him as a worker hired year by year; he shall not be ruled over harshly in your presence. ⁵⁴ And if he is not redeemed by these means, he shall go free in the Year of Jubilee, he and his children with him. ⁵⁵ For the people of Israel are my servants; they are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am your Father.