Leviticus 25:1-22 ▼

1 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.

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.