The Sabbath Year
1The LORD said to Moses at Mount Sinai,a 2“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a sabbath to the LORD. 3For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops.b 4But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of sabbath rest,c a sabbath to the LORD. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards.d 5Do not reap what grows of itselfe or harvest the grapesf of your untended vines.g The land is to have a year of rest. 6Whatever the land yields during the sabbath yearh will be food for you—for yourself, your male and female servants, and the hired worker and temporary resident who live among you, 7as well as for your livestock and the wild animalsi in your land. Whatever the land produces may be eaten.
The Year of Jubilee
25:8-38Ref — Dt 15:1-11
25:39-55Ref — Ex 21:2-11; Dt 15:12-18
8“ ‘Count off seven sabbath years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbath years amount to a period of forty-nine years. 9Then have the trumpetj sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month;k on the Day of Atonementl sound the trumpet throughout your land. 10Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim libertym throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubileen for you; each of you is to return to your family propertyo and to your own clan. 11The fiftieth year shall be a jubileep for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines.q 12For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields.
13“ ‘In this Year of Jubileer everyone is to return to their own property.
14“ ‘If you sell land to any of your own people or buy land from them, do not take advantage of each other.s 15You are to buy from your own people on the basis of the number of yearst since the Jubilee. And they are to sell to you on the basis of the number of years left for harvesting crops. 16When the years are many, you are to increase the price, and when the years are few, you are to decrease the price,u because what is really being sold to you is the number of crops. 17Do not take advantage of each other,v but fear your God.w I am the LORD your God.x
18“ ‘Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws,y and you will live safely in the land.z 19Then the land will yield its fruit,a and you will eat your fill and live there in safety.b 20You may ask, “What will we eat in the seventh yearc if we do not plant or harvest our crops?” 21I will send you such a blessingd in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years.e 22While you plant during the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in.f
23“ ‘The landg must not be sold permanently, because the land is mineh and you reside in my land as foreignersi and strangers. 24Throughout the land that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemptionj of the land.
25“ ‘If one of your fellow Israelites becomes poor and sells some of their property, their nearest relativek is to come and redeeml what they have sold. 26If, however, there is no one to redeem it for them but later on they prosperm and acquire sufficient means to redeem it themselves, 27they are to determine the value for the yearsn since they sold it and refund the balance to the one to whom they sold it; they can then go back to their own property.o 28But if they do not acquire the means to repay, what was sold will remain in the possession of the buyer until the Year of Jubilee. It will be returnedp in the Jubilee, and they can then go back to their property.q
29“ ‘Anyone who sells a house in a walled city retains the right of redemption a full year after its sale. During that time the seller may redeem it. 30If it is not redeemed before a full year has passed, the house in the walled city shall belong permanently to the buyer and the buyer’s descendants. It is not to be returned in the Jubilee. 31But houses in villages without walls around them are to be considered as belonging to the open country. They can be redeemed, and they are to be returned in the Jubilee.
32“ ‘The Levites always have the right to redeem their houses in the Levitical towns,r which they possess. 33So the property of the Levites is redeemable—that is, a house sold in any town they hold—and is to be returned in the Jubilee, because the houses in the towns of the Levites are their property among the Israelites. 34But the pastureland belonging to their towns must not be sold; it is their permanent possession.s
35“ ‘If any of your fellow Israelites become poort and are unable to support themselves among you, help themu as you would a foreigner and stranger, so they can continue to live among you. 36Do not take interestv or any profit from them, but fear your God,w so that they may continue to live among you. 37You must not lend them money at interestx or sell them food at a profit. 38I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaany and to be your God.z
39“ ‘If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and sell themselves to you, do not make them work as slaves.a 40They are to be treated as hired workersb or temporary residents among you; they are to work for you until the Year of Jubilee. 41Then they and their children are to be released, and they will go back to their own clans and to the propertyc of their ancestors.d 42Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt,e they must not be sold as slaves. 43Do not rule over them ruthlessly,f but fear your God.g
44“ ‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly. Article: Slavery in Ancient Israel
47“ ‘If a foreigner residing among you becomes rich and any of your fellow Israelites become poor and sell themselvesh to the foreigner or to a member of the foreigner’s clan, 48they retain the right of redemptioni after they have sold themselves. One of their relativesj may redeem them: 49An uncle or a cousin or any blood relative in their clan may redeem them. Or if they prosper,k they may redeem themselves. 50They and their buyer are to count the time from the year they sold themselves up to the Year of Jubilee.l The price for their release is to be based on the rate paid to a hired workerm for that number of years. 51If many years remain, they must pay for their redemption a larger share of the price paid for them. 52If only a few years remain until the Year of Jubilee, they are to compute that and pay for their redemption accordingly.n 53They are to be treated as workers hired from year to year; you must see to it that those to whom they owe service do not rule over them ruthlessly.o
54“ ‘Even if someone is not redeemed in any of these ways, they and their children are to be released in the Year of Jubilee, 55for the Israelites belong to me as servants. They are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt.p I am the LORD your God.q
Reward for Obedience
1“ ‘Do not make idolsa or set up an imageb or a sacred stonec for yourselves, and do not place a carved stoned in your land to bow down before it. I am the LORD your God.
2“ ‘Observe my Sabbathse and have reverence for my sanctuary.f I am the LORD.
3“ ‘If you follow my decrees and are careful to obeyg my commands, 4I will send you rainh in its season,i and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit.j 5Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you wantk and live in safety in your land.l
6“ ‘I will grant peace in the land,m and you will lie downn and no one will make you afraid.o I will remove wild beastsp from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country. 7You will pursue your enemies,q and they will fall by the sword before you. 8Fiver of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.s
9“ ‘I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers,t and I will keep my covenantu with you. 10You will still be eating last year’s harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new.v 11I will put my dwelling place1,w among you, and I will not abhor you.x 12I will walky among you and be your God,z and you will be my people.a 13I am the LORD your God,b who brought you out of Egyptc so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoked and enabled you to walk with heads held high.
Punishment for Disobedience
14“ ‘But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands,e 15and if you reject my decrees and abhor my lawsf and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant,g 16then I will do this to you: I will bring on you sudden terror, wasting diseases and feverh that will destroy your sight and sap your strength.i You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it.j 17I will set my facek against you so that you will be defeatedl by your enemies;m those who hate you will rule over you,n and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.o
18“ ‘If after all this you will not listen to me,p I will punishq you for your sins seven times over.r 19I will break down your stubborn prides and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze.t 20Your strength will be spent in vain,u because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of your land yield their fruit.v
21“ ‘If you remain hostilew toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over,x as your sins deserve. 22I will send wild animalsy against you, and they will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you so fewz in number that your roads will be deserted.a
23“ ‘If in spite of these things you do not accept my correctionb but continue to be hostile toward me, 24I myself will be hostilec toward you and will afflict you for your sins seven times over. 25And I will bring the swordd on you to avengee the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plaguef among you, and you will be given into enemy hands. 26When I cut off your supply of bread,g ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat, but you will not be satisfied.
27“ ‘If in spite of this you still do not listen to meh but continue to be hostile toward me, 28then in my angeri I will be hostilej toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over.k 29You will eatl the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters.m 30I will destroy your high places,n cut down your incense altarso and pile your dead bodies2 on the lifeless forms of your idols,p and I will abhorq you. 31I will turn your cities into ruinsr and lay wastes your sanctuaries,t and I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings.u 32I myself will lay waste the land,v so that your enemies who live there will be appalled.w 33I will scatterx you among the nationsy and will draw out my swordz and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste,a and your cities will lie in ruins.b 34Then the land will enjoy its sabbath years all the time that it lies desolatec and you are in the country of your enemies;d then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. 35All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the reste it did not have during the sabbaths you lived in it.
36“ ‘As for those of you who are left, I will make their hearts so fearful in the lands of their enemies that the sound of a windblown leaff will put them to flight.g They will run as though fleeing from the sword, and they will fall, even though no one is pursuing them.h 37They will stumble over one anotheri as though fleeing from the sword, even though no one is pursuing them. So you will not be able to stand before your enemies.j 38You will perishk among the nations; the land of your enemies will devour you.l 39Those of you who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins; also because of their ancestors’m sins they will waste away.n
40“ ‘But if they will confesso their sinsp and the sins of their ancestorsq—their unfaithfulness and their hostility toward me, 41which made me hostiler toward them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies—then when their uncircumcised heartss are humbledt and they payu for their sin, 42I will remember my covenant with Jacobv and my covenant with Isaacw and my covenant with Abraham,x and I will remember the land. 43For the land will be desertedy by them and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them. They will pay for their sins because they rejectedz my laws and abhorred my decrees.a 44Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies,b I will not reject them or abhorc them so as to destroy them completely,d breaking my covenante with them. I am the LORD their God. 45But for their sake I will rememberf the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egyptg in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the LORD.’ ”
46These are the decrees, the laws and the regulations that the LORD established at Mount Sinaih between himself and the Israelites through Moses.i
Redeeming What Is the LORD’s
1The LORD said to Moses, 2“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If anyone makes a special vowa to dedicate a person to the LORD by giving the equivalent value, 3set the value of a male between the ages of twenty and sixty at fifty shekels1 of silver, according to the sanctuary shekel2;b 4for a female, set her value at thirty shekels3; 5for a person between the ages of five and twenty, set the value of a male at twenty shekels4,c and of a female at ten shekels5; 6for a person between one month and five years, set the value of a male at five shekels6,d of silver and that of a female at three shekels7 of silver; 7for a person sixty years old or more, set the value of a male at fifteen shekels8 and of a female at ten shekels. 8If anyone making the vow is too poor to paye the specified amount, the person being dedicated is to be presented to the priest, who will set the valuef according to what the one making the vow can afford.
9“ ‘If what they vowed is an animal that is acceptable as an offering to the LORD,g such an animal given to the LORD becomes holy.h 10They must not exchange it or substitute a good one for a bad one, or a bad one for a good one;i if they should substitute one animal for another, both it and the substitute become holy. 11If what they vowed is a ceremonially unclean animalj—one that is not acceptable as an offering to the LORD—the animal must be presented to the priest, 12who will judge its quality as good or bad. Whatever value the priest then sets, that is what it will be. 13If the owner wishes to redeemk the animal, a fifth must be added to its value.l
14“ ‘If anyone dedicates their house as something holy to the LORD, the priest will judge its quality as good or bad. Whatever value the priest then sets, so it will remain. 15If the one who dedicates their house wishes to redeem it,m they must add a fifth to its value, and the house will again become theirs.
16“ ‘If anyone dedicates to the LORD part of their family land, its value is to be set according to the amount of seed required for it—fifty shekels of silver to a homer9 of barley seed. 17If they dedicate a field during the Year of Jubilee, the value that has been set remains. 18But if they dedicate a field after the Jubilee,n the priest will determine the value according to the number of years that remaino until the next Year of Jubilee, and its set value will be reduced. 19If the one who dedicates the field wishes to redeem it,p they must add a fifth to its value, and the field will again become theirs. 20If, however, they do not redeem the field, or if they have sold it to someone else, it can never be redeemed. 21When the field is released in the Jubilee,q it will become holy,r like a field devoted to the LORD;s it will become priestly property.
22“ ‘If anyone dedicates to the LORD a field they have bought, which is not part of their family land, 23the priest will determine its value up to the Year of Jubilee,t and the owner must pay its value on that day as something holy to the LORD. 24In the Year of Jubilee the field will revert to the person from whom it was bought,u the one whose land it was. 25Every value is to be set according to the sanctuary shekel,v twenty gerahsw to the shekel.
26“ ‘No one, however, may dedicate the firstborn of an animal, since the firstborn already belongs to the LORD;x whether an ox10 or a sheep, it is the LORD’s. 27If it is one of the unclean animals,y it may be bought back at its set value, adding a fifth of the value to it. If it is not redeemed, it is to be sold at its set value.
28“ ‘But nothing that a person owns and devotes11,z to the LORD—whether a human being or an animal or family land—may be sold or redeemed; everything so devoted is most holya to the LORD.
29“ ‘No person devoted to destruction12 may be ransomed; they are to be put to death.b
30“ ‘A tithec of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the LORD; it is holyd to the LORD. 31Whoever would redeeme any of their tithe must add a fifth of the valuef to it. 32Every tithe of the herd and flock—every tenth animal that passes under the shepherd’s rodg—will be holy to the LORD. 33No one may pick out the good from the bad or make any substitution.h If anyone does make a substitution, both the animal and its substitute become holy and cannot be redeemed.i’ ”
34These are the commands the LORD gave Moses at Mount Sinaij for the Israelites.k