The Sabbath Year
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"Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into 2the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the LORD.
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For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits,
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but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the LORD. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard.
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3You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land.
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The Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves and for your hired servant and the sojourner who lives with you,
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and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: 4all its yield shall be for food.
The Year of Jubilee
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"You shall count seven weeksa of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years.
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Then you shall sound 5the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. 6On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land.
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And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and 7proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of 8you shall return to his clan.
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That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it 9you shall neither sow nor reap 10what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines.
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And if you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, 13you shall not wrong one another.
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14You shall pay your neighbor according to the number of years after the jubilee, and he shall sell to you according to the number of years for crops.
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If the years are many, you shall increase the price, and if the years are few, you shall reduce the price, for it is the number of the crops that he is selling to you.
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16"Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then 17you will dwell in the land securely.
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And if you say, 21'What shall we eat in the seventh year, if 22we may not sow or gather in our crop?'
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I will 23command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years.
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24When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of 25the old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives.
Redemption of Property
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"The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for 26the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me.
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And in all the country you possess, you shall allow a redemption of the land.
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"If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his property, 27then his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his brother has sold.
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If a man has no one to redeem it and then himself becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it,
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let 28him calculate the years since he sold it and pay back the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and then return to his property.
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But if he has not sufficient means to recover it, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of the buyer until the year of jubilee. In the jubilee it shall 29be released, and 30he shall return to his property.
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"If a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city, he may redeem it within a year of its sale. For a full year he shall have the right of redemption.
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If it is not redeemed within a full year, then the house in the walled city shall belong in perpetuity to the buyer, throughout his generations; 31it shall not be released in the jubilee.
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But the houses of the villages that have no wall around them shall be classified with the fields of the land. They may be redeemed, and 32they shall be released in the jubilee.
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As for 33the cities of the Levites, the Levites may redeem at any time the houses in the cities they possess.
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And if one of the Levites exercises his right of redemption, then the house that was sold in a city they possess shall be released in the jubilee. For the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the people of Israel.
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But the fields 34of pastureland belonging to their cities may not be sold, for that is their possession forever.
Kindness for Poor Brothers
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"If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, 35you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you.
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36Take no interest from him or profit, but 37fear your God, that your brother may live beside you.
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39I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.
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40"If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave:
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he shall be with you as a hired servant and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee.
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41Then he shall go out from you, 42he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return 43to the possession of his fathers.
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For they are 44my servants,c whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves.
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As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you.
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48You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property.
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You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel 49you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.
Redeeming a Poor Man
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"If a stranger or sojourner with you becomes rich, and 50your brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner with you or to a member of the stranger's clan,
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then after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him,
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or his uncle or his cousin may 51redeem him, or a close relative from his clan may redeem him. Or if he 52grows rich he may redeem himself.
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He shall calculate with his buyer from the year when he sold himself to him until the year of jubilee, and the price of his sale shall vary with the number of years. The time he was with his owner shall be 53rated as the time of a hired servant.
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If there are still many years left, he shall pay proportionately for his redemption some of his sale price.
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If there remain but a few years until the year of jubilee, he shall calculate and pay for his redemption in proportion to his years of service.
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He shall treat him as a servant hired year by year. 54He shall not rule ruthlessly over him in your sight.
The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.
(English Standard Version - The Holy Bible Online)