Read the Bible: Leviticus 25

This is a long chapter but it boils down to: Give the land a Sabbath rest every seventh year; and a hard reset every 50 years that God calls the year of Jubilee. The land and the people in it belong to the LORD.

Leviticus 25

The LORD spake to Moses on mount Sinai, saying:

2 “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them ‘When you come into the land which I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the LORD.

3 Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in the fruit of them;

4 But the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest for the land, a Sabbath for the LORD: you shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard.

5 That which grows of its own accord of your harvest you shall not reap, neither gather the grapes of your vine undressed: for it is a year of rest for the land.

6 The Sabbath of the land can be food for you; for you, and for your servant, and for your maid, and for your hired servant, and for the stranger that stays with you.

7 And for your cattle, and for the animals that are in your land, shall all the produce of them be food.

8 You shall number seven Sabbaths of years, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be to you forty nine years.

9 Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, on the day of atonement you shall make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.

10 You shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all the inhabitants of it: it shall be a Jubilee to you; and you shall return every man to his possession, and you shall return every man to his family.

11 The fiftieth year will be a Jubilee to you: you shall not sow or reap that which grows of itself in it, nor gather the grapes of your vineyard that year.

12 For it is the Jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat the produce out of the field.

13 In the year of this Jubilee each of you shall return to his property.

14 If you sell anything to your neighbour, or buy anything from your neighbour’s hand, you shall not oppress one another:

15 According to the number of years after the Jubilee you shall buy of your neighbour, and according to the number of years of the fruits he shall sell to you.

16 When there will be many years you shall increase the price, and when there are fewer years you shall decrease the price of it: for according to the number of the years of the fruits he sells to you.

17 Therefore you shall not oppress one another; but you shall fear your God: for I am the LORD your God.

18 You shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments; and you shall dwell in the land in safety.

19 And the land shall yield her fruit, and you shall eat your fill, and dwell in safety.

20  If you say “What shall we eat in the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase:”

21 Then I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years.

22 You shall sow the eighth year while still eating old fruit until the ninth year; until the harvests come in you shall eat of the old store.

23 The land shall not be sold forever: for the land is mine, for you are strangers and travelers with me.

24 And in all the land of your possession you shall grant a redemption for the land.

25 If your brother has become poor, and has sold away some of his possessions, if any of his kin come to redeem it, then he shall redeem that which his brother sold.

26 And if the man has no one to redeem it, and he is able to redeem it himself;

27 Then let him count the years of the sale, and pay the balance to the man he sold it to; that he may return to his possession.

28 But if he be not able to restore it to him, then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of him that has bought it until the year of Jubilee: and in the Jubilee it shall go out, and he shall return to his possession.

29 If a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; for a full year may he redeem it.

30 And if it is not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be established for ever to him that bought it throughout his generations: it shall not go out in the Jubilee.

31 But the houses of the villages which have no wall around  them shall be counted as the fields of the country: they may be redeemed, and they shall go out in the Jubilee.

32 Notwithstanding the cities of the Levites, and the houses of the cities of their possession, the Levites may redeem at any time.

33 And if a man purchases from the Levites, then the house that was sold, and the city of his possession, shall go out in the year of Jubilee: for the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel.

34 But the field of the suburbs of their cities may not be sold; for it is their perpetual possession.

35 If your brother becomes poor, and cannot sustain himself among you; then you are to support him as a stranger, or a traveler; that he may continue to live among you.

36 Take no interest or make profit from him: but fear your God; that your brother may live with you. 

37 You shall not lend him money for interest, nor sell him your food for profit.

38 I 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.

39 And if your brother that dwells by you becomes poor, and is sold to you; you shall not compel him to serve as a bondservant.

40 But as a hired servant, and as a foreign resident, he shall be with you, and shall serve you until the year of Jubilee.

41 Then he shall depart from you, he and his children with him, and shall return to his own family, and return to the possession of his fathers.

42 For they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen.

43 You shall not rule over him ruthlessly; but shall fear your God.

44 Both your male and female servants, which you shall have, shall be of the nations that are around you; of them you shall buy bondservants.

45 You may also buy of the children of the strangers that sojourn among you, and of their families that are with you, which are born in your land: and they shall be your possession.

46 You shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your servants forever: but over your brothers, the children of Israel, you shall not rule one over another harshly. 

47 If a traveler or stranger becomes rich by you, and your brother that dwells among you is poor, and sells himself to the stranger or traveler, or to the stock of the stranger’s family:

48 After he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brothers may redeem him.

49 Either his uncle, or his cousin, may redeem him, or any that is close kin to him or his family may redeem him; or if he is able, he may redeem himself.

50 And he shall reason with him that bought him from the year that he was sold to him to the year of Jubilee: and the price of his sale shall be according to the number of years, according to the time of a hired servant it shall be with him.

51 If there are many years, according to them he shall give again the price of his redemption out of the money that he was bought for.

52 And if there remain but a few years to the year of Jubilee, then he shall count with him, and according to his years shall he give him again the price of his redemption.

53 As a yearly hired servant he shall be with him: and the other shall not rule with harshly over him in your sight.

54 And if he is not redeemed in these years, then he shall go out in the year of Jubilee, he and his children with him.

55 For to me the children of Israel are servants; they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

See also: Leviticus 25 in ESV, HCSB, NASB and NIV via Bible Gateway.

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