“Speak to the children of Israel and tell them: When you come into the land that I give you, then the land must observe a Sabbath to Yahweh.
Six years you may sow your field, and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather in the produce.
But in the seventh year there must be a Sabbath of complete rest for the land, a Sabbath to Yahweh. You are not to sow your field or prune your vineyard.
You are not to reap what grows by itself from your harvest, and you are not to gather the grapes of your untrimmed vines. It must be a year of complete rest for the land.
The Sabbath produce of the land will be for food for you, for yourself, for your servant, for your maid, for your hired servant and for your stranger who lives as a foreigner with you.
Even your livestock and the animals that are in your land may have all it produces for food.
The Year of Jubilee
“You are to count off seven Sabbaths of years, seven times seven years, so the time of the seven Sabbaths of years will be for you a total of 49 years.
Then you are to sound a loud blast on the shofar on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you will sound the shofar throughout all your land.
You are to make the fiftieth year holy, and you are to proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It will be a jubilee to you, and each of you are to return to his own property and each of you is to return to his family.
That fiftieth year will be a jubilee to you. In it you are not to sow, nor reap what grows of itself, nor gather from the undressed vines,
for it is a jubilee; it is to be holy to you. You may eat of its increase out of the field.
“In this Year of Jubilee each of you is to return to his property.
If you sell anything to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you are not to wrong one another.
You are to buy back from your neighbor based on the number of years since the Jubilee. And he is to sell to you based on the number of remaining years for growing the crops.
According to the length of the years remaining you are to increase its price, and according to the shortness of the years you are to diminish its price; for he is selling the number of the crops that will be harvested to you.
You are not to wrong one another, but you are to fear your God; for I am Yahweh your God.
“Therefore you are to do my statutes and keep my ordinances and do them, and then you will live in the land in safety.
The land will yield its fruit, and you can eat your fill, and live in it in safety.
But if you say, ‘What will we eat the seventh year? Behold, we are not to sow or gather in our increase.’
then I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year and it will bring forth fruit for the three years.
When you sow the eighth year you will still be eating some of the old crop; its produce. Until the ninth year, until its produce comes in, you will eat the old crop.
Redemption of Property
“The land is not to be sold permanently, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and live as foreigners with me.
In all the land of your possession you are to grant a redemption for the land.
If your brother becomes poor and sells some of his possessions, then his kinsman-redeemer 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 count the years since its sale and pay back the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and he will return to his property.
But if he is not able to get it back for himself, then what he has sold will remain in the hand of him who has bought it until the Year of Jubilee, and in the Jubilee it is to be released and he may return to his property.
“If a man sells a house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it has been sold. For a full year he will have the right of redemption.
If it is not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city is to be made sure permanently to him who bought it throughout his generations. It is not to be released in the Jubilee.
But the houses of the villages that have no wall around them are to be included with the fields of the country; they may be redeemed and they are to be released in the Jubilee.
“As for 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 must be released in the Jubilee; for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel.
But the field of the open land of their cities may not be sold, for it is their permanent possession.
Kindness for Poor Brothers
“If your brother has become poor and his hand cannot support him among you, then you are to uphold 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, that your brother may live among you.
You are not to lend him your money along with interest, nor give him your food for profit.
I am Yahweh your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.
“If your brother has grown poor among you and sells himself to you, you must not make him serve as a slave.
As a hired servant and as a temporary resident he may be with you; he may serve with you until the Year of Jubilee,
then he is to go out from you, he and his children with him, and may 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 are not to be sold as slaves.
You are not to rule over him with harshness, but fear your God.
As for your male and your female slaves whom you may have; of the nations that are around you, from them you may buy male and female slaves.
Moreover of the children of the aliens who live among you, of them you may buy, and of their families who are with you that they have conceived in your land; and they will be your property.
You may make them an inheritance for your children after you, to hold for a possession; of them may you take your slaves forever. But over your brothers the children of Israel you must not rule, one over another, with harshness.
Redeeming a Poor Man
“If an alien or temporary resident with you becomes rich and your brother beside him has grown poor and he 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 anyone from his family who is a close relative to him may redeem him; or if he has grown rich, he may redeem himself.
He, along with the one who bought him, is to calculate from the year that he sold himself to him to the Year of Jubilee, and the price of his sale will be according to the number of years left until Jubilee; according to the time period of a hired servant is it to be with him.
If there are yet many years, according to them he must give back the price of his redemption out of the money that he was bought for.
If there remain but a few years to the Year of Jubilee, then he will calculate with him, according to his years of service he will give back the price of his redemption.
He will be with him as a hired servant year after year: he is not to rule harshly over him before your eyes.
If he is not redeemed by these means, then he is to be released in the Year of Jubilee, he and his children with him.
For the children of Israel are servants to me; they are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am Yahweh your God.”