Leviticus 25:8-38

Modern English Version

The Year of Jubilee^(A)

⁸ You shall count seven sabbath weeks of years, seven times seven years, and the time of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. ⁹ Then you shall sound the horn blasts on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall make the sound of the horn throughout all your land. ¹⁰ You shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all the inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee to you, and each of you shall return to his possession, and every person shall return to his family. ¹¹ That fiftieth year will be a Jubilee for you. You shall neither sow nor reap that which grows by itself, nor gather the grapes of your unpruned vines. ¹² For it is the Jubilee. It shall be holy to you. You shall eat the produce of the field.

¹³ In the Year of Jubilee you shall return to your property.

¹⁴ If you sell anything to your neighbor or buy anything from your neighbor, you shall not oppress one another. ¹⁵ According to the number of years after the Jubilee you shall pay your neighbor, and according to the number of years of the crops he shall sell to you. ¹⁶ According to the increase of years you shall increase the price, and according to the decrease of years you shall diminish the price of it. For he shall sell to you according to the number of years of crops. ¹⁷ You shall not therefore oppress one another, but you shall fear your God. For I am the Lord your God.

¹⁸ Therefore you shall do My statutes, and keep My decrees, and do them, and you shall dwell securely in the land. ¹⁹ The land shall yield its fruit, and you shall eat your fill and live securely in it. ²⁰ If you shall say, “What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we shall not sow nor gather in our crop?” ²¹ then I will command My blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth produce for three years. ²² You shall sow in the eighth year, and eat yet of old crops until the ninth year until its crops come in for you.

Redemption of Property

²³ The land shall not be permanently sold, for the land is Mine. For you are foreigners and sojourners with Me. ²⁴ In all the land of your possession you shall grant a redemption for the land.

²⁵ If your brother becomes poor and has sold some of his possession, then his nearest redeemer will come to redeem it, and buy back that which his brother sold. ²⁶ If the man has none to redeem it, but he himself is able to redeem it, ²⁷ then let him count the years since the sale and pay back the balance to the man to whom he sold it, so that he may return to his property. ²⁸ But if he is not able to restore it to himself, then that which he sold shall remain in the hand of him who has bought it until the Year of Jubilee, and in the Jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his possession.

²⁹ If a man sells a house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a year after it is sold, within a full year he may have the right to buy it back. ³⁰ If it is not redeemed within the time of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be given permanently to him who bought it throughout his generations. It shall not be returned in the Jubilee. ³¹ But the houses of the villages that have no wall around them shall be counted as the fields of the land. They may be redeemed, and they shall be returned in the Jubilee.

³² For the cities of the Levites, they may redeem at any time the houses in the cities that they possess. ³³ If a Levite purchases back the house that was sold in the city of his possession, then it shall be returned in the Jubilee. For the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel. ³⁴ But the fields of the land of their cities may not be sold, for they are their perpetual possession.

Helping the Poor

³⁵ If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, then you shall support him as if he were a foreigner or a sojourner, so that he may live with you. ³⁶ Take no usury or interest from him; but fear your God, so that your brother may live with you. ³⁷ You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor lend 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.