Sabbatical Year for Canceling Debts

1At the end of every seven years, you must cancel debts. 2This is the way it is to be done: every creditor must release what they have lent to their neighbor. They may not require payment from his neighbor and his brother, because YHWH’s release has been proclaimed. 3You may require it from a foreigner, but whatever of yours is with your brother, your hand must release. 4However there will be no poor with you (for YHWH will surely bless you in the land which YHWH your God gives you for an inheritance to possess) 5if only you diligently listen to the voice of YHWH your God, to observe to do all this commandment which I command you today. 6For YHWH your God will bless you, as he promised you. You will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow. You will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you. 7If a poor man, one of your brothers, is with you within any of your gates in your land which YHWH your God gives you, you must not harden your heart, nor shut your hand from your poor brother; 8but you must open-open your hand to him and lend-lend him enough for his need, whatever he lacks. 9Beware that there not be a wicked thought in your heart, saying, “The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand,” and your eye be evil against your poor brother and you give him nothing; and he cry to YHWH against you, and it be sin to you. 10You must give-give, and your heart must not be grieved when you give to him, because it is for this thing YHWH your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you put your hand to. 11For the poor will never cease out of the land. Therefore I command you to open-open your hand to your sibling, to your needy, and to your poor, in your land.

Freeing Hebrew Servants

12If your sibling, a Hebrew man or woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you are to let them go free from you. 13When you let them go free from you, you must not let them go empty-handed. 14You are to furnish-furnish them from your flock, your threshing floor, and your wine press. As YHWH your God has blessed you, you are to give to them. 15You must remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and YHWH your God redeemed you. Therefore I command you this today. 16However, if the servant tells you, “I will not leave you,” because he loves you and your house, because he is well with you, 17then you are take an awl, and thrust it through his ear to the door, and he will be your servant forever. Also to your female servant you are to do likewise. 18You should not view it as a hardship when you let him go free from you, for he has been double the value of a hired hand as he served you six years. YHWH your God will bless you in all that you do.

Firstborn Animals

19You are to dedicate all the firstborn males that are born of your herd and of your flock to YHWH your God. You must do no work with the firstborn of your herd, nor shear the firstborn of your flock. 20You are to eat it before YHWH your God year by year in the place that YHWH chooses, you and your household. 21If it has any defect—is lame or blind, or has any defect—you must not sacrifice it to YHWH your God. 22You are to eat it within your gates. The unclean and the clean will eat it alike, as the gazelle and as the deer. 23Only you must not eat its blood. You must pour it out on the ground like water.