Leviticus 25

NEW AMERICAN BIBLE	DOUAI-RHEIMS
1 The LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai,	1 And the Lord spoke to Moses in mount Sinai, saying:
2 "Speak to the Israelites and tell them: When you enter the land that I am giving you, let the land, too, keep a sabbath for the LORD.	2 Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: When you shall have entered into the land which I will give you, observe the rest of the sabbath to the Lord.
3 For six years you may sow your field, and for six years prune your vineyard, gathering in their produce.	3 Six years thou shalt sow thy field and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and shalt gather the fruits thereof:
4 But during the seventh year the land shall have a complete rest, a sabbath for the LORD, when you may neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard.	4 But in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath to the land, of the resting of the Lord: thou shalt not sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard.
5 The aftergrowth of your harvest you shall not reap, nor shall you pick the grapes of your untrimmed vines in this year of sabbath rest for the land.	5 What the ground shall bring forth of itself, thou shalt not reap: neither shalt thou gather the grapes of the firstfruits as a vintage: for it is a year of rest to the land:
6 While the land has its sabbath, all its produce will be food equally for you yourself and for your male and female slaves, for your hired help and the tenants who live with you,	6 But they shall be unto you for meat, to thee and to thy manservant, to thy maidservant and thy hireling, and to the strangers that sojourn with thee:
7 and likewise for your livestock and for the wild animals on your land.	7 All things that grow shall be meat to thy beasts and to thy cattle.
8 "Seven weeks of years shall you count--seven times seven years--so that the seven cycles amount to forty-nine years.	8 Thou shalt also number to thee seven weeks of years, that is to say, seven times seven, which together make forty-nine years:
9 Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month let the trumpet resound; on this, the Day of Atonement, the trumpet blast shall re-echo throughout your land.	9 And thou shalt sound the trumpet in the seventh month, the tenth day of the month, in the time of the expiation in all your land.
10 This fiftieth year you shall make sacred by proclaiming liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when every one of you shall return to his own property, every one to his own family estate.	10 And thou shalt sanctify the fiftieth year, and shalt proclaim remission to all the inhabitants of thy land: for it is the year of jubilee. Every man shall return to his possession, and every one shall go back to his former family:
11 In this fiftieth year, your year of jubilee, you shall not sow, nor shall you reap the aftergrowth or pick the grapes from the untrimmed vines.	11 Because it is the jubilee and the fiftieth year. You shall not sow, nor reap the things that grow in the field of their own accord, neither shall you gather the firstfruits of the vines,
12 Since this is the jubilee, which shall be sacred for you, you may not eat of its produce, except as taken directly from the field.	12 Because of the sanctification of the jubilee: but as they grow you shall presently eat them.
13 "In this year of jubilee, then, every one of you shall return to his own property.	13 In the year of the jubilee all shall return to their possessions.
14 Therefore, when you sell any land to your neighbor or buy any from him, do not deal unfairly.	14 When thou shalt sell any thing to thy neighbour, or shalt buy of him; grieve not thy brother: but thou shalt buy of him according to the number of years from the jubilee.
15 On the basis of the number of years since the last jubilee shall you purchase the land from him; and so also, on the basis of the number of years for crops, shall he sell it to you.	15 And he shall sell to thee according to the computation of the fruits.
16 When the years are many, the price shall be so much the more; when the years are few, the price shall be so much the less. For it is really the number of crops that he sells you.	16 The more years remain after the jubilee, the more shall the price increase: and the less time is counted, so much the less shall the purchase cost. For he shall sell to thee the time of the fruits.
17 Do not deal unfairly, then; but stand in fear of your God. I, the LORD, am your God.	17 Do not afflict your countrymen, but let every one fear his God: because I am the Lord your God.
18 "Observe my precepts and be careful to keep my regulations, for then you will dwell securely in the land.	18 Do my precepts, and keep my judgments, and fulfil them: that you may dwell in the land without any fear,
19 The land will yield its fruit and you will have food in abundance, so that you may live there without worry.	19 And the ground may yield you its fruits, of which you may eat your fill, fearing no mall's invasion.
20 Therefore, do not say, 'What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we do not then sow or reap our crop?'	20 But if you say: What shall we eat the seventh year, if we sow not, nor gather our fruits?
21 I will bestow such blessings on you in the sixth year that there will then be crop enough for three years.	21 I will give you my blessing the sixth year, and it shall yield the fruits of three years:
22 When you sow in the eighth year, you will continue to eat from the old crop; and even into the ninth year, when the crop comes in, you will still have the old to eat from.	22 And the eighth year you shall sow, and shall eat of the old fruits, until the ninth year: till new grow up, you shall eat the old store.
23 "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is mine, and you are but aliens who have become my tenants.	23 The land also shall not be sold for ever: because it is mine, and you are strangers and sojourners with me.
24 Therefore, in every part of the country that you occupy, you must permit the land to be redeemed.	24 For which cause all the country of your possession shall be under the condition of redemption.
25 When one of your countrymen is reduced to poverty and has to sell some of his property, his closest relative, who has the right to redeem it, may go and buy back what his kinsman has sold.	25 If thy brother being impoverished sell his little possession, and his kinsman will, he may redeem what he had sold.
26 If, however, the man has no relative to redeem his land, but later on acquires sufficient means to buy it back in his own name,	26 But if he have no kinsman, and he himself can find the price to redeem it:
27 he shall make a deduction from the price in proportion to the number of years since the sale, and then pay back the balance to the one to whom he sold it, so that he may thus regain his own property.	27 The value of the fruits shall be counted from that time when he sold it: and the overplus he shall restore to the buyer, and so shall receive his possession again.
28 But if he does not acquire sufficient means to buy back his land, what he has sold shall remain in the possession of the purchaser until the jubilee, when it must be released and returned to its original owner.	28 But if his hands find not the means to repay the price, the buyer shall have what he bought, until the year of the jubilee. For in that year all that is sold shall return to the owner, and to the ancient possessor.
29 "When someone sells a dwelling in a walled town, he has the right to buy it back during the time of one full year from its sale.	29 He that selleth a house within the walls of a city, shall have the liberty to redeem it, until one year be expired:
30 But if such a house in a walled town has not been redeemed at the end of a full year, it shall belong in perpetuity to the purchaser and his descendants; nor shall it be released in the jubilee.	30 If he redeem it not, and the whole year be fully out, the buyer shall possess it, and his posterity for ever, and it cannot be redeemed, not even in the jubilee.
31 However, houses in villages that are not encircled by walls shall be considered as belonging to the surrounding farm land; they may be redeemed at any time, and in the jubilee they must be released.	31 But if the house be in a village, that hath no walls, it shall be sold according to the same law as the fields: if it be not redeemed before, in the jubilee it shall return to the owner.
32 "In levitical cities the Levites shall always have the right to redeem the town houses that are their property.	32 The houses of Levites, which are in cities, may always be redeemed:
33 Any town house of the Levites in their cities that had been sold and not redeemed, shall be released in the jubilee; for the town houses of the Levites are their hereditary property in the midst of the Israelites.	33 If they be not redeemed, in the jubilee they shall all return to the owners, because the houses of the cities of the Levites are for their possessions among the children of Israel.
34 Moreover, the pasture land belonging to their cities shall not be sold at all; it must always remain their hereditary property.	34 But let not their suburbs be sold, because it is a perpetual possession.
35 "When one of your fellow countrymen is reduced to poverty and is unable to hold out beside you, extend to him the privileges of an alien or a tenant, so that he may continue to live with you.	35 If thy brother be impoverished, and weak of hand, and thou receive him as a stranger and sojourner, and he live with thee,
36 Do not exact interest from your countryman either in money or in kind, but out of fear of God let him live with you.	36 Take not usury of him nor more than thou gavest: fear thy God, that thy brother may live with thee.
37 You are to lend him neither money at interest nor food at a profit.	37 Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor exact of him any increase of fruits.
38 I, the LORD, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.	38 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that I might give you the land of Chanaan, and might be your God.
39 "When, then, your countryman becomes so impoverished beside you that he sells you his services, do not make him work as a slave.	39 If thy brother constrained by poverty, sell himself to thee, thou shalt not oppress him with the service of bondservants:
40 Rather, let him be like a hired servant or like your tenant, working with you until the jubilee year,	40 But he shall be as a hireling, and a sojourner: he shall work with thee until the year of the jubilee,
41 when he, together with his children, shall be released from your service and return to his kindred and to the property of his ancestors.	41 And afterwards he shall go out with his children, and shall return to his kindred and to the possession of his fathers,
42 Since those whom I brought out of the land of Egypt are servants of mine, they shall not be sold as slaves to any man.	42 For they are my servants, and I brought them out of the land of Egypt: let them not be sold as bondmen:
43 Do not lord it over them harshly, but stand in fear of your God.	43 Afflict him not by might, but fear thy God.
44 "Slaves, male and female, you may indeed possess, provided you buy them from among the neighboring nations.	44 Let your bondmen, and your bondwomen, be of the nations that are round about you.
45 You may also buy them from among the aliens who reside with you and from their children who are born and reared in your land. Such slaves you may own as chattels,	45 And of the strangers that sojourn among you, or that were born of them in your land, these you shall have for servants:
46 and leave to your sons as their hereditary property, making them perpetual slaves. But you shall not lord it harshly over any of the Israelites, your kinsmen.	46 And by right of inheritance shall leave them to your posterity, and shall possess them for ever. But oppress not your brethren the children of Israel by might.
47 "When one of your countrymen is reduced to such poverty that he sells himself to a wealthy alien who has a permanent or a temporary residence among you, or to one of the descendants of an immigrant family,	47 If the hand of a stranger or a sojourner grow strong among you, and thy brother being impoverished sell himself to him, or to any of his race:
48 even after he has thus sold his services he still has the right of redemption; he may be redeemed by one of his own brothers,	48 After the sale he may be redeemed. He that will of his brethren shall redeem him:
49 or by his uncle or cousin, or by some other relative or fellow clansman; or, if he acquires the means, he may redeem himself.	49 Either his uncle, or his uncle's son, or his kinsman, by blood, or by affinity. But if he himself be able also, he shall redeem himself,
50 With his purchaser he shall compute the years from the sale to the jubilee, distributing the sale price over these years as though he had been hired as a day laborer.	50 Counting only the years from the time of his selling unto the year of the jubilee: and counting the money that he was sold for, according to the number of the years and the reckoning of a hired servant,
51 The more such years there are, the more of the sale price he shall pay back as ransom;	51 If there be many years that remain until the jubilee, according to them shall he also repay the price.
52 the fewer years there are left before the jubilee year, the more he has to his credit; in proportion to his years of service shall he pay his ransom.	52 If few, he shall make the reckoning with him according to the number of the years, and shall repay to the buyer of what remaineth of the years,
53 The alien shall treat him as a servant hired on an annual basis, and he shall not lord it over him harshly under your very eyes.	53 His wages being allowed for which he served before: he shall not afflict him violently in thy sight.
54 If he is not thus redeemed, he shall nevertheless be released, together with his children, in the jubilee year.	54 And if by these means he cannot be redeemed, in the year of the jubilee he shall go out with his children.
55 For to me the Israelites belong as servants; they are servants of mine, because I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I, the LORD, your God.	55 For the children of Israel are my servants, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt.