The Sabbath Year
Leviticus 25YHWH said to Moses on Mount Sinai, “You are to speak to the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘When y’all come into the land which I give y’all, then the land will observe a Sabbath to YHWH. You may sow your field six years, and you may prune your vineyard six years, and gather in its fruits; but in the seventh year there will be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to YHWH. You must not sow your field or prune your vineyard. What grows of itself in your harvest you must not reap, and you must not gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It will be a year of solemn rest for the land. Whatever the land produces during the Sabbath year can be food for y’all—for yourself, your servant, your maid, your hired servant, and your foreign resident, who lives as a foreigner with you, your livestock, and the animals that are in your land. All its produce is for food to be eaten.
The Year of Jubilee
“‘You are to count off seven Sabbaths of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of seven Sabbaths of years is forty-nine years. Then you are to sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement y’all must sound the trumpet throughout all y’all’s land. Y’all are to make the fiftieth year holy, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It will be a jubilee for y’all. Each of y’all is to return to their own property and clan. That fiftieth year will be a jubilee for y’all. Y’all must not sow or reap what grows by itself, nor gather from the undressed vines. For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for y’all. Y’all are to eat of its increase out of the field.
“‘In this Year of Jubilee each of y’all must return to their own property.
“‘If y’all sell anything to your neighbor, or buy from your neighbor, y’all must not wrong one another. You are to buy from your neighbor according to the number of years since the Jubilee. They are to sell to you according to the number of remaining years of produce. You are to increase its price according to the length of the years, and diminish its price according to the shortness of the years, because they are selling you the number of the crops. Y’all must not wrong one another, but you are to fear your God, for I am YHWH y’all’s God.
“‘Therefore y’all are to do my statutes, and keep my ordinances and do them, so that y’all will dwell in the land in safety. The land will yield its fruit, and y’all may eat your fill, and y’all may dwell there in safety. If y’all ask, “What will we eat the seventh year if we do not sow or gather in our produce?” Then I will command my blessing on y’all in the sixth year, and it will bear fruit for the three years. When y’all sow in the eighth year, y’all will eat of the fruits from the old crop until the ninth year. Until its fruits come in, y’all will eat the old crops.
“‘The land must not be sold in perpetuity, because the land is mine. Y’all are strangers and live as foreigners with me. In all the land of y’all’s possession, y’all must all for redemption of the land.
“‘If your brother becomes poor, and sells some of his possessions, then his kinsman who is next to him is to come and redeem what his brother has sold. If a man has no one to redeem it, and he becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it, then let him calculate the years since its sale, and restore the surplus to the man to whom he sold it, and return to his property. But if he isn’t able to get it back for himself, then what he has sold will remain in the hand of the one who has bought it until the Year of Jubilee. In the Jubilee it is to be released, so he may return to his property.
“‘If a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it has been sold. For a full year he is to have the right of redemption. If it isn’t redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city is to belong in perpetuity to the one who bought it, throughout his generations. It will not be released on the Jubilee. But the houses of the villages without walls around them must be considered open fields. They may be redeemed, and they are to be released in the Jubilee.
“‘Nevertheless, in the cities of the Levites, the Levites may redeem the houses in the cities of their possession at any time. The Levites may redeem the house that was sold, and the city of his possession, and it is to be released in the Jubilee, because the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel. But the field of the pasture lands of their cities may not be sold, for it is their perpetual possession.
Kindness for the Poor
“‘If your brother has become poor, and his hand can’t support himself among you, then you are to support him. He is to live with you like an alien and a temporary resident. Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, so that your brother may live among you. You must not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. I am YHWH y’all’s God, who brought y’all out of the land of Egypt, to give y’all the land of Canaan, and to be y’all’s God.
“‘If your brother has grown poor among you, and sells himself to you, you must not make him to serve as a slave. He is to be with you as a hired servant, and as a temporary resident. He is to serve with you until the Year of Jubilee. Then he may go out from you, he and his children with him, and return to his own family, and to the possession of his fathers. For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. They must not be sold as slaves. You must not rule over him with harshness, but fear your God.
“‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around y’all, from them y’all may buy male and female slaves. Y’all may also buy them from the children of the temporary residents who live among y’all, and from their families who are with y’all, which they have conceived in y’all’s land. They may be y’all’s property. Y’all may give them as an inheritance for y’all’s children after y’all, to take as a possession. Y’all may enslave them forever. But over y’all’s brothers the children of Israel y’all must not rule over one another harshly.
“‘If an alien or temporary resident with you becomes rich, and your brother beside him has grown poor, and sells himself to the stranger or foreigner living among you, or to a member of the stranger’s family, after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him; or his uncle, or his uncle’s son, may redeem him, or any who is a close relative to him of his family may redeem him; or if he has grown rich, he may redeem himself. He must calculate with the one who bought him from the year that he sold himself to him up to the Year of Jubilee. The price of his sale is to be according to the number of years, according to the wages of a hired servant. If there are still many years, he must give back the price of his redemption from the money that he was bought for. If there remain but a few years to the year of Jubilee, he is to calculate and pay the price of his redemption according to his years of service. He is to function like a servant hired year by year. He must not rule with harshness over him in your sight. If he is not redeemed by these means, then he and his children with him are to be released in the Year of Jubilee. For the children of Israel are my servants. They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am YHWH y’all’s God.