Open English Translation LEV Chapter 25

25 Then on Mt. Sinai, Yahweh told Mosheh:[ref]

2 Tell the Israelis that when you all enter the land that I’m giving you, the land must observe a rest year for Yahweh. 3 You can plant your crops, prune your grapevines, and harvest all its produce for six years, 4 but during the seventh year, yyou must allow the land to rest to honour Yahweh. You musn’t plant any crops or prune any grapevines. 5 Don’t systematically harvest the self-sown crops or the grapes from the untrimmed vines. It must be a rest year for the land. 6 However, during the rest year, the land will provide food for you and your servants, and for your hired workers and the foreigners who are living among you, 7 as well as your livestock and the wild animals across the land. Any produce from the land can be eaten.

8 Count off seven rest years, so seven times seven which is forty-nine years, 9 then after that, sound loud horn blasts on the 10th of the seventh month to announce throughout the land that it’s the day for making things right with Yahweh. 10 Then you all must declare that fiftieth year to be sacred. It’ll be a restoration celebration year when you announce freedom for all the inhabitants of the country—everyone can be free to return to their families, and all families can be free to return to their originally inherited land. 11 That fiftieth year will be a restoration celebration year. You all mustn’t plant crops and don’t systematically harvest the self-sown crops or the grapes from the untrimmed vines, 12 because it’s a restoration celebration year. You all must treat it as sacred and just eat what you take directly from the countryside.

13 In that restoration celebration year, you all should return to your inherited land. 14 In the other years when you buy or sell from your fellow citizens, you mustn’t cheat them 15 because the value of the land will depend on the number of years after the restoration celebration year, i.e., you must take into account the number of years of produce—16 if there’s many years to go, the price will increase, and if the next rest year is close, the price will decrease because you’re selling the number of crops. 17 So don’t cheat eat other—you must respect and obey your god, because I am your god Yahweh.

18 You all must follow all my instructions and maintain my values—keeping them so that you’ll be able to live securely on the land. 19 The land will yield its crops and you’ll all have plenty to eat, and you’ll be able to live there securely.

20 But if you all wonder what you’ll eat in that seventh year when you’ll neither plant crops or do organised harvests, 21 well I’ll send my blessing to you all in the sixth year, and it’ll produce enough for three years 22 so you all can still eat that stored food while you plant crops in the eighth year to feed you all through the ninth year.

23 The land can not be irrevocably sold, because it belongs to me and you all are foreigners and temporary residents on my land. 24 so for all the land that you take possession of, there must be a way to get back the family land. 25 For example, if an Israeli man becomes poor and sells off some of his inherited land, then a close relative must have the right to go and buy back that land. 26 Even if he didn’t have a relative who could do that, and he prospers again in the future and is able to raise enough money, 27 then he can calculate the value of the years until the restoration celebration, and then for that amount he must be allowed to buy the land back from the person he’d sold it to. 28 However, if the original owner wasn’t able to raise enough money, then that piece of land that was sold will remain under the control of the buyer until the restoration celebration year when it must be returned anyway.

29 If a house inside a walled city is sold, then the right to buy it back will last until one full year after the sale. 30 If it’s not bought back by the original family within that year, then that house in the walled city will then belong permanently to the buyer—it won’t be returned in the restoration celebration year. 31 On the contrary, village houses will be considered as part of the family land, so they’ll be able to be bought back by the family, otherwise they’ll be returned in the restoration celebration year.

32 The Levites’ cities and houses will belong to them permanently—the Levites must always be able to buy them back, 33 but even if they don’t buy them back, they must be returned in the restoration celebration year because the Levites’ houses are their only possession among the Israelis. 34 In addition, they may not sell the pastureland around their cities because that’s their permanent possession.

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