Leviticus 25 - 27

The Sabbatical Year

Yahweh then spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai, saying, 2 “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘When you come into the land which I am giving to you, then the land shall have a sabbath to Yahweh. 3 Six years you shall sow your field, and 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 Yahweh; you shall not sow your field nor prune your vineyard. 5 What grows of its own accord from your harvest you shall not reap, and your grapes of untrimmed vines you shall not gather; the land shall have a sabbatical year. 6 And the sabbath produce of the land shall be for food; for you and your male and female slaves and your hired man and your foreign resident, those who sojourn with you. 7 Even your cattle and the beasts that are in your land shall have all its produce to eat.

The Year of Jubilee

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, namely, 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 You shall thus set apart as holy the fiftieth year and proclaim a release through the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his own possession of land, and each of you shall return to his family. 11 You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow; you shall not reap what grows of its own accord; you shall not gather in from its untrimmed vines. 12 For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You shall eat its produce out of the field. 13 ‘On this year of jubilee, each of you shall return to his own possession of land. 14 If you make a sale, moreover, to your companion or buy from your friend’s hand, you shall not mistreat one another. 15 Corresponding to the number of years after the jubilee, you shall buy from your companion; he is to sell to you according to the number of years of produce. 16 In proportion to the extent of the years you shall increase its price, and in proportion to the fewness of the years you shall diminish its price, for it is the number of crops it produces that he is selling to you. 17 So you shall not mistreat one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am Yahweh your God. 18 ‘You shall thus observe My statutes and keep My judgments, so as to do them, that you may live securely on the land. 19 Then the land will yield its fruit, so that you can eat your fill and live securely on it. 20 But if you say, “What are we going to eat on the seventh year if we do not sow or gather in our produce?” 21 then I will command My blessing for you in the sixth year that it will bring forth the produce for three years. 22 So you shall sow the eighth year and eat old things from that produce, eating the old until the ninth year when its produce comes in.

The Redemption of Land

23 ‘The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are but sojourners and foreign residents with Me. 24 Thus for every piece of land of your possession, you shall provide for the redemption of the land. 25 ‘If a brother of yours becomes so poor he has to sell part of his possession of land, then his nearest kinsman redeemer is to come and redeem what his brother has sold. 26 Or in case a man has no kinsman redeemer, but recovers his means and finds sufficient payment for its redemption, 27 then he shall calculate the years since its sale and return the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and so return to his possession of land. 28 But if he has not found sufficient means to return it to 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, that he may return to his possession of land. 29 ‘Likewise, if a man sells a house for habitation in a walled city, then his redemption right remains valid until a full year from its sale; his right of redemption lasts a full year. 30 But if it is not redeemed for him within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city passes permanently to its purchaser throughout his generations; it does not revert in the jubilee. 31 The houses of the villages, however, which have no surrounding wall, shall be considered as open fields; they have redemption rights and revert in the jubilee. 32 As for cities of the Levites, the Levites have a permanent right of redemption for the houses of the cities which are their possession. 33 What, therefore, belongs to the Levites may be redeemed, and a house sale in the city of their possession reverts in the jubilee, for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the sons of Israel. 34 But pasture fields of their cities shall not be sold, for that is their perpetual possession.

Redemption Rights for Poor Brothers

35 ‘Now if a brother of yours becomes poor and his means with regard to you falter, then you are to sustain him, like a sojourner or a foreign resident, that he may live with you. 36 Do not take usurious interest from him, but fear your God, that your brother may live with you. 37 You shall not give him your silver at interest nor your food for gain. 38 I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God. 39 ‘If a brother of yours becomes so poor with regard to you that he sells himself to you, you shall not subject him to a slave’s service. 40 He shall be with you as a hired man, as if he were a foreign resident; he shall serve with you until the year of jubilee. 41 He shall then go out from you, he and his sons with him, and shall return to his family, that he may return to the possession of the land of his fathers. 42 For they are My slaves whom I brought out from the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold in a slave sale. 43 You shall not have dominion over him with brutality, but you shall fear your God. 44 As for your male and female slaves whom you may have—you may acquire male and female slaves from the nations that are around you. 45 And also you may acquire from the sons of the foreign residents who sojourn among you, from them and their families who are with you; as for those whom they have begotten in your land, they also may become your possession. 46 You may even give them as an inheritance to your sons after you, to receive as a possession; you can use them as permanent slaves. But in respect to your brothers, the sons of Israel, you shall not have dominion over one another with brutality.

Redemption from a Sojourner

47 ‘Now if the means of a sojourner or of a foreign resident with you becomes sufficient, and a brother of yours becomes so poor with regard to him as to sell himself to a sojourner who resides with you or to the descendants of a sojourner’s family, 48 then he shall have redemption right after he has been sold. One of his brothers may redeem him, 49 or his uncle or his uncle’s son may redeem him, or one of his blood relatives from his family may redeem him; or if he prospers, he may redeem himself. 50 He then with his purchaser shall calculate from the year when he sold himself to him up to the year of jubilee; and the price of his sale shall correspond to the number of years. It is like the days of a hired man that he shall be with him. 51 If there are still many years, he shall return part of his purchase price in proportion to them for his own redemption; 52 and if few years remain until the year of jubilee, he shall so calculate with him. In proportion to his years he shall return the amount for his redemption. 53 Like a man hired year by year he shall be with him; he shall not have dominion over him with brutality in your sight. 54 Even if he is not redeemed by these means, he shall still go out in the year of jubilee, he and his sons with him. 55 For the sons of Israel are My slaves; they are My slaves whom I brought out from the land of Egypt. I am Yahweh your God.

He Walks Among Those Who Walk in His Statutes

‘You shall not make for yourselves idols, nor shall you set up for yourselves a graven image or a sacred pillar, nor shall you place a carved stone in your land to bow down to it; for I am Yahweh your God. 2 You shall keep My sabbaths and fear My sanctuary; I am Yahweh. 3 If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments so as to do them, 4 then I shall give you rains in their season, so that the land will give forth its produce and the trees of the field will give forth their fruit. 5 Indeed, your threshing will last for you until grape gathering, and grape gathering will last until sowing time. You will thus eat your food to the full and live securely in your land. 6 I shall also give you peace in the land so that you may lie down, with no one making you tremble. I shall also eliminate wild beasts from the land, and no sword will pass through your land. 7 But you will pursue your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword; 8 and five of you will pursue one hundred, and one hundred of you will pursue ten thousand, and your enemies will fall before you by the sword. 9 So I will turn toward you and make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will confirm My covenant with you. 10 And you will eat the old supply and clear out the old because of the new. 11 Moreover, I will make My dwelling among you, and My soul will not loathe you. 12 I will also walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people. 13 I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would not be their slaves, and I broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

Reject His Statutes and He Will Strike You

14 ‘But if you do not obey Me and do not do all these commandments, 15 if, instead, you reject My statutes, and if your soul loathes My judgments so as not to do all My commandments and so break My covenant, 16 I, in turn, will do this to you: I will appoint over you a sudden terror, consumption and fever that will waste away the eyes and cause the soul to pine away; also, you will sow your seed uselessly, for your enemies will eat it up. 17 And I will set My face against you so that you will be defeated before your enemies; and those who hate you will have dominion over you, and you will flee when no one is pursuing you. 18 If also after these things you do not obey Me, then I will discipline you seven times more for your sins. 19 I will also break down your pride of strength; I will also give your sky over to become like iron and your earth like bronze. 20 And your power will be spent uselessly, for your land will not give forth its produce and the trees of the land will not give forth their fruit. 21 ‘If then, you walk in hostility against Me and are unwilling to obey Me, I will increase the plague on you seven times according to your sins. 22 And I will send out among you the beasts of the field, which will bereave you of your children and cut down your cattle and reduce your number so that your roads lie desolate. 23 ‘And if by these things you do not accept My discipline, but walk in hostility against Me, 24 then I will walk in hostility against you; and I, even I, will strike you seven times for your sins. 25 I will also bring upon you a sword which will execute vengeance for the covenant; and when you gather together into your cities, I will send pestilence among you so that you shall be given over into enemy hands. 26 When I break your staff of bread, ten women will bake your bread in one oven, and they will bring back your bread by rationed weight so that you will eat and not become full. 27 ‘Yet, if in spite of this you do not obey Me, but walk in hostility against Me, 28 then I will walk in wrathful hostility against you, and I, even I, will discipline you seven times for your sins. 29 Further, you will eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters you will eat. 30 I then will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and give your corpses to lie on the corpses of your idols, for My soul shall loathe you. 31 And I will give your cities over as a waste and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your soothing aromas. 32 And I will make the land desolate, so that your enemies who inhabit it will themselves feel desolate because of it. 33 You, however, I will scatter among the nations and will draw out a sword after you, as your land becomes desolate and your cities become waste. 34 ‘Then the land will make up for its sabbaths all the days of the desolation, and you will be in your enemies’ land; then the land will rest and make up for its sabbaths. 35 All the days of its desolation it will observe the rest which it did not observe on your sabbaths, while you were living on it. 36 As for those of you who may remain, I will also bring weakness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. And the sound of a driven leaf will pursue them, and even when no one is pursuing they will flee as though from the sword, and they will fall. 37 They will therefore stumble over each other as if running from the sword, although no one is pursuing; and you will have no strength to stand up before your enemies. 38 But you will perish among the nations, and your enemies’ land will consume you. 39 So those of you who may remain will rot away in their iniquity in the lands of your enemies; and also in the iniquities of their fathers they will rot away with them. 40 ‘If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, in their unfaithfulness which they committed against Me, and also how they walked in hostility against Me— 41 I also was walking in hostility against them, to bring them into the land of their enemies—or if their uncircumcised heart becomes humbled so that they then make up for their iniquity, 42 then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and I will remember also My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham as well, and I will remember the land. 43 For the land will be forsaken by them and will make up for its sabbaths while it is made desolate without them. They, meanwhile, will be making up for their iniquity because they rejected My judgments and their soul loathed My statutes. 44 Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I so loathe them as to bring an end to them, breaking My covenant with them; for I am Yahweh their God. 45 But I will remember for them the covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am Yahweh.’” 46 These are the statutes and judgments and laws which Yahweh has given to be between Himself and the sons of Israel by the hand of Moses at Mount Sinai.

Holy to Yahweh

Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘When a man makes a difficult vow, he shall be valued according to your valuation of persons belonging to Yahweh. 3 If your valuation is of the male from twenty years even to sixty years old, then your valuation shall be fifty shekels of silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary. 4 Or if it is a female, then your valuation shall be thirty shekels. 5 If it be from five years even to twenty years old then your valuation for the male shall be twenty shekels and for the female ten shekels. 6 But if they are from a month even up to five years old, then your valuation shall be five shekels of silver for the male, and for the female your valuation shall be three shekels of silver. 7 If they are from sixty years old and upward, if it is a male, then your valuation shall be fifteen shekels, and for the female ten shekels. 8 But if he is poorer than your valuation, then he shall be presented before the priest, and the priest shall value him; according to the means of the one who vowed, the priest shall value him. 9 ‘Now if it is an animal of the kind which men can bring near as an offering to Yahweh, any such that one gives to Yahweh shall be holy. 10 He shall not replace it or exchange it, a good for a bad, or a bad for a good; or if he does exchange animal for animal, then both it and its substitute shall become holy. 11 If, however, it is any unclean animal of the kind which men do not bring near as an offering to Yahweh, then he shall present the animal before the priest. 12 And the priest shall value it as either good or bad; as you, the priest, value it, so it shall be. 13 But if he should ever wish to redeem it, then he shall add one-fifth of it to your valuation. 14 ‘Now if a man sets his house apart as holy to Yahweh, then the priest shall value it as either good or bad; as the priest values it, so it shall stand. 15 Yet if the one who sets it apart as holy should wish to redeem his house, then he shall add one-fifth of your valuation price to it, so that it may be his. 16 ‘Again, if a man sets apart as holy to Yahweh a portion of the fields of his own possession, then your valuation shall be proportionate to the seed needed for it: a homer of barley seed at fifty shekels of silver. 17 If he sets apart his field as holy from the year of jubilee, according to your valuation it shall stand. 18 If he sets apart his field as holy after the jubilee, however, then the priest shall calculate the price for him proportionate to the years that are left until the year of jubilee; and it shall be deducted from your valuation. 19 If the one who sets it apart as holy should ever wish to redeem the field, then he shall add one-fifth of your valuation price to it so that it may stand as his own. 20 Yet if he will not redeem the field, but has sold the field to another man, it may no longer be redeemed; 21 and it will be that when it reverts in the jubilee, the field shall be holy to Yahweh, like a field that is devoted; it shall be for the priest as his possession. 22 Or if he sets apart as holy to Yahweh a field which he has bought, which is not a portion of the field of his own possession, 23 then the priest shall calculate for him the amount of your valuation up to the year of jubilee; and he shall on that day give your valuation as holy to Yahweh. 24 In the year of jubilee the field shall return to the one from whom he bought it, to whom the possession of the land belongs. 25 Every valuation of yours, moreover, shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary. The shekel shall be twenty gerahs. 26 ‘However, a firstborn among animals, which as a firstborn belongs to Yahweh, no man may set it apart as holy; whether ox or sheep, it is Yahweh’s. 27 But if it is among the unclean animals, then he shall ransom it according to your valuation and add to it one-fifth of it; and if it is not redeemed, then it shall be sold according to your valuation. 28 ‘Nevertheless, anything which a man devotes to Yahweh out of all that he has, of man or animal or of the fields of his own possession, shall not be sold or redeemed. Anything devoted to destruction is most holy to Yahweh. 29 No one who may have been devoted among men shall be ransomed; he shall surely be put to death. 30 ‘Thus all the tithe of the land, of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, belongs to Yahweh; it is holy to Yahweh. 31 If, therefore, a man wishes to redeem part of his tithe, he shall add to it one-fifth of it. 32 For every tenth part of herd or flock, whatever passes under the rod, the tenth one shall be holy to Yahweh. 33 He shall not inquire whether it is good or bad, nor shall he exchange it; or if he does exchange it, then both it and its substitute shall become holy. It shall not be redeemed.’” 34 These are the commandments which Yahweh commanded Moses for the sons of Israel at Mount Sinai.