Leviticus:25

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* The LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai , * "Say to the people of Israel , When you come into the land which I give you , the land shall keep a sabbath to the LORD . * Six years you shall sow your field , and six years you shall prune your vineyard , and gather in its fruits ; * 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 . * What grows of itself in your harvest you shall not reap , and the grapes of your undressed vine you shall not gather ; it shall be a year of solemn rest for the land . * 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 ; * for your cattle also and for the beasts that are in your land all its yield shall be for food . * "And you shall count seven weeks of years , seven times seven years , so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall be to you forty-nine years . * Then you shall send abroad the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month ; on the day of atonement you shall send abroad the trumpet throughout all your land . * And you shall hallow the fiftieth year , and proclaim 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 you shall return to his family . * A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be to you ; in it you shall neither sow , nor reap what grows of itself , nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines . * For it is a jubilee ; it shall be holy to you ; you shall eat what it yields out of the field . * "In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property . * And if you sell to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor , you shall not wrong one another . * According to the number of years after the jubilee , you shall buy from your neighbor , and according to the number of years for crops he shall sell to you . * If the years are many you shall increase the price , and if the years are few you shall diminish the price , for it is the number of the crops that he is selling to you . * You shall not wrong one another , but you shall fear your God ; for I am the LORD your God . * "Therefore you shall do my statutes , and keep my ordinances and perform them ; so you will dwell in the land securely . * The land will yield its fruit , and you will eat your fill , and dwell in it securely . * And if you say , `What shall we eat in the seventh year , if we may not sow or gather in our crop ?' * I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year , so that it will bring forth fruit for three years . * When you sow in the eighth year , you will be eating old produce ; until the ninth year , when its produce comes in , you shall eat the old . * The land shall not be sold in perpetuity , for the land is mine ; for you are strangers and sojourners with me . * And in all the country you possess , you shall grant a redemption of the land . * "If your brother becomes poor , and sells part of his property , then his next of kin shall come and redeem what his brother has sold . * If a man has no one to redeem it , and then himself becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it , * let him reckon the years since he sold it and pay back the overpayment to the man to whom he sold it ; and he shall return to his property . * But if he has not sufficient means to get it back for himself , then what he sold shall remain in the hand of him who bought it until the year of jubilee ; in the jubilee it shall be released , and he shall return to his property . * "If a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city , he may redeem it within a whole year after its sale ; for a full year he shall have the right of redemption . * If it is not redeemed within a full year , then the house that is in the walled city shall be made sure in perpetuity to him who bought it , throughout his generations ; it shall not be released in the jubilee . * But the houses of the villages which have no wall around them shall be reckoned with the fields of the country ; they may be redeemed , and they shall be released in the jubilee . * Nevertheless the cities of the Levites , the houses in the cities of their possession , the Levites may redeem at any time . * And if one of the Levites does not exercise his right of redemption , then the house that was sold in a city of their possession shall be released in the jubilee ; for the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the people of Israel . * But the fields of common land belonging to their cities may not be sold ; for that is their perpetual possession . * "And if your brother becomes poor , and cannot maintain himself with you , you shall maintain him ; as a stranger and a sojourner he shall live with you . * Take no interest from him or increase , but fear your God ; that your brother may live beside you . * You shall not lend him your money at interest , nor give him your food for profit . * I am the LORD your God , who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan , and to be your God . * "And if your brother becomes poor beside you , and sells himself to you , you shall not make him serve as a slave : * he shall be with you as a hired servant and as a sojourner . He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee ; * then he shall go out from you , he and his children with him , and go back to his own family , and return to the possession of his fathers . * For they are my servants , whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt ; they shall not be sold as slaves . * You shall not rule over him with harshness , but shall fear your God . * As for your male and female slaves whom you may have : you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are round about you . * You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their families that are with you , who have been born in your land ; and they may be your property . * You may bequeath them to your sons after you , to inherit as a possession for ever ; you may make slaves of them , but over your brethren the people of Israel you shall not rule , one over another , with harshness . * "If a stranger or sojourner with you becomes rich , and your brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner with you , or to a member of the stranger 's family , * then after he is sold he may be redeemed ; one of his brothers may redeem him , * or his uncle , or his cousin may redeem him , or a near kinsman belonging to his family may redeem him ; or if he grows rich he may redeem himself . * He shall reckon with him who bought him from the year when he sold himself to him until the year of jubilee , and the price of his release shall be according to the number of years ; the time he was with his owner shall be rated as the time of a hired servant . * If there are still many years , according to them he shall refund out of the price paid for him the price for his redemption . * If there remain but a few years until the year of jubilee , he shall make a reckoning with him ; according to the years of service due from him he shall refund the money for his redemption . * As a servant hired year by year shall he be with him ; he shall not rule with harshness over him in your sight . * And if he is not redeemed by these means , then he shall be released in the year of jubilee , he and his children with him . * For to me the people of Israel are servants , they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt : I am the LORD your God .

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