Leviticus 25:1-28 ▼

1 The LORD then spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying,

2 “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘When you come into the land which I am going to give you, then the land shall have a Sabbath to the LORD.

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

4 but during the seventh year the land shall have a Sabbath rest, a Sabbath to the LORD; you shall not sow your field nor prune your vineyard.

5 You shall not reap your harvest’s aftergrowth, and you shall not gather your grapes of untrimmed vines; the land shall have a sabbatical year.

6 All of you shall have the Sabbath produce of the land as food; for yourself, your male and female slaves, and your hired worker and your foreign resident, those who live as strangers among you.

7 Even your cattle and the animals that are in your land shall have all its produce to eat.

8 ‘You are also to count off seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years, so that you have the time of the seven Sabbaths of years, that is, forty-nine years.

9 You shall then sound a ram’s horn abroad on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall sound a horn all through your land.

10 So you shall consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim a release throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family.

11 You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow, nor harvest its aftergrowth, nor gather grapes from its untrimmed vines.

12 For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You shall eat its produce from the field.

13 ‘On this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his own property.

14 Furthermore, if you make a sale to your friend, or buy from your friend’s hand, you shall not wrong one another.

15 Corresponding to the number of years after the jubilee, you shall buy from your friend; he is to sell to you according to the number of years of crops.

16 In proportion to a greater number of years you shall increase its price, and in proportion to fewer years you shall decrease its price, because it is the number of crops that he is selling to you.

17 So you shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the LORD your God.

18 ‘You shall therefore follow My statutes and keep My judgments so as to carry them out, so that you may live securely on the land.

19 Then the land will yield its produce, so that you can eat your fill and live securely on it.

20 But if you say, “What are we going to eat in the seventh year if we do not sow nor gather in our produce?”

21 then I will so order My blessing for you in the sixth year that it will bring forth the produce for three years.

22 When you are sowing the eighth year, you can still eat old things from the produce, eating the old until the ninth year when its produce comes in.

23 ‘The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, because the land is Mine; for you are only strangers and residents with Me.

24 So for every piece of your property, you are to provide for the redemption of the land.

25 ‘If a fellow countryman of yours becomes so poor that he sells part of his property, then his closest redeemer is to come and buy back what his relative has sold.

26 Or in case someone has no redeemer, but recovers to find sufficient means for its redemption,

27 then he shall calculate the years since its sale and refund the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and so return to his property.

28 But if he has not found sufficient means to get it back for himself, then what he has sold shall remain in the hands of its purchaser until the year of jubilee; but at the jubilee it shall revert, so that he may return to his property.