UST LEV Chapter 25

◄ LEV 25 ► ║ ©

25 Yahweh said to Moses on Mount Sinai, 2 “Tell the Israelites this: When you enter the land that I am about to give you, you must regularly let the ground rest for a Sabbath to honor me, Yahweh. 3 For six years plant crops in your fields, prune your grapevines, and harvest your crops. 4 But during the seventh year you must allow your fields to rest completely, as a Sabbath to honor me, Yahweh. Do not plant seeds in your fields or prune your grapevines during the seventh year. 5 Do not organize harvesting grain or gathering grapes that grow on their own without your planting or pruning. You must allow the land to rest for that one year. 6 But even while it is resting, the land will provide you with food. You and your male and female servants, and workers whom you have hired, and people who are living among you temporarily—you all may eat those things. 7 Your livestock and other animals on your land are also permitted to eat whatever the land produces during that year.

8 Count how many rest years you have had. After seven rest years, that is after seven times seven years (which is 49 years), 9 blow trumpets everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month of the next year. These trumpets will announce the Day of Atonement throughout the land. 10 Make this 50th year a special celebration and announce that everyone in the country is free. This is the year for restoring! (When you come into the land Yahweh will give each family some land that is to be theirs permanently.) You must give back any of that land that they have had to sell because of debts. You must also free and send any Israelites who had to become slaves because of debts back to their families. 11 The fiftieth year will be a year for restoring. During that year do not plant anything, and do not harvest in your usual manner the crops or grapes that have grown by themselves. 12 Because it is a time of restoring you will treat it as sacred and eat only what you take directly from the fields.

13 In that year of restoring, everyone should return to his own inherited property.

14 If you sell some of your land to a fellow Israelite or if you buy some land from one of them, you must treat that person fairly because he is your fellow Israelite. 15 Pay another Israelite for his land an amount depending on the number of years since the last celebration of restoring. He should sell it for an amount based on how many years that you can harvest until the next time for restoring. 16 If there will be many years before the next time for restoring, the price will be higher. If there will be only a few years until the next time for restoring, the price will be lower. He is really selling you the number of crops you can harvest before the next year of restoring. 17 Do not cheat each other. Instead, honor your God. Remember: I, Yahweh am your God.

18 Obey all my rules and instructions carefully. If you do that, you will continue to live safely in your country. 19 The crops will grow well on the land, you will have plenty to eat, and you will live safely in your country. 20 But you may ask, ‘If we do not plant or harvest our crops during the seventh year, what will we have to eat?’ 21 Do not worry, I will bless your crops very much during the sixth year. That year there will be enough crops to feed for you for three years. 22 You will be able to plant seed during the eighth year and wait for the crops to grow, while still eating the food grown in the sixth year. You will continue to eat it until you harvest your crops in the ninth year.

23 You must not sell any of your land to belong to someone else permanently, because the land is not yours. It is really mine, and you are only living on it temporarily like foreigners and farming it for me. 24 Throughout the country that you will possess, you must remember that if someone sells some of his land to you, he is permitted to buy it back from you at any time.

25 So if one of your fellow Israelites becomes poor and sells some of his property, his closest relative (that is, his redeemer) may come and buy back that land back from you for the poor man. 26 However, even if a man has no one to buy the land for him, he may prosper again and save enough money to buy that land back. 27 He must calculate how many years there will be until the next year of restoring. Then he must pay to the man who bought the land the money that the other man would have earned by growing crops on that land for those years. The buyer must sell it back to the original owner. 28 But if the original owner does not save enough money to buy back the land that he sold, it will continue to belong to the man who bought it until the next year of restoring. In that year the buyer must restore it to him, and the original owner will be able to farm it again.

29 If someone sells a house in a city that has a wall around it, he may buy it back from the man who bought it for one year. 30 If he does not buy it back during that year, then the house in the walled city will belong permanently to the man who bought it, and to that man’s descendants. He does not need to return it to the original owner in the year of restoring. 31 But houses that are in villages without walls are considered to be as though they were in a field. So if someone sells one of those houses, he may buy it back at any time. And even if he does not buy it, he will take possession of it again at the year of restoring.

32 The descendants of Levi are a special case, however. If they sell their houses in the cities that belong to them, they may buy them back at any time. 33 But even if they do not buy back those houses, they will become theirs again in the year of restoring, because those houses are in their cities, on land that the other Israelites had given to them. 34 But they may not sell the pastureland near their towns. It must belong to the original owners permanently.

35 If one of your fellow Israelites becomes poor and is unable to buy what he needs, others of you must help him as you would help a foreigner who is living among you temporarily. You will help him stay living in your country. 36 If you lend money to him, do not make him pay back more than he borrowed. Instead, show by what you do that you honor your God; you must help that Israelite, in order that he will be able to continue to live among you. 37 If you lend him money, do not make him pay back more than he borrowed. If you sell food to him, charge him only what you paid for it. 38 Remember: I am Yahweh your God. I brought you out of Egypt to be your God and to give you the land of Canaan.

39 If one of your fellow Israelites becomes poor and sells himself to you, do not force him to work like a slave. 40 Treat him as you treat workers whom you hire or like someone who is living on your land temporarily. He must work for you only until the year of restoring. 41 During that year, you must free him and his children, and he may go back to his family and to the property that his ancestors owned. 42 You will do this because all the Israelites are my slaves. I freed them from being slaves in Egypt. So none of you should buy each other and make each other into slaves. 43 And do not treat the Israelites whom you buy cruelly. Instead, honor your God.

44 If you want to have slaves, you may buy them from nearby people groups. 45 You may also buy some of the foreigners who are living temporarily among you, and members of their clans that were born in your country. You may own them 46 for the rest of your life. After you die, your children may own them. But you must not act in brutal ways toward your fellow Israelites because they are your relatives.

47 Suppose a foreigner who is living among you becomes rich, and a fellow Israelite becomes poor and sells himself to that foreigner or to a member of his clan. 48 Even after he sells himself, someone may pay back his debt so he can go free. One of his relatives may pay back his debt so he can go free. 49 An uncle or a cousin or another relative in his clan may pay back his debt so he can go free. Or, if he prospers and gets enough money, he may pay back his own debt so he can go free. 50 He and his master must count the number of years from when he sold himself to the next year of restoring. The price he pays to the man who bought him will depend on the standard pay that a master would give to a hired worker for that number of years. 51 If there are a lot of years that remain until the year of restoring, he must pay a larger amount of the money to go free. 52 If there are only a few years that remain until the year of restoring, he and his master must agree on a smaller amount for him to go free. 53 While he works for a foreign master, the master must treat him like he would treat an annual hired worker. All of you Israelites must make sure that the foreigner does not treat him cruelly.

54 And even if a fellow Israelite who has sold himself to a foreigner is not able to pay to go free by any of these ways, he and his children must go free in the year of restoring. 55 This is because the Israelites are my slaves. I freed them from being slaves in Egypt to be my slaves. Remember: I am Yahweh your God.”

◄ LEV 25 ► ║ ©

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