Leviticus 25

NEW JERUSALEM	CATHOLIC PUBLIC DOMAIN
1 Yahweh spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai and said:	1 And the Lord spoke to Moses on mount Sinai, saying:
2 'Speak to the Israelites and say to them: "When you enter the country which I am giving you, the landmust keep a Sabbath's rest for Yahweh.	2 Speak to the sons of Israel, and you shall say to them: When you will have entered into the land which I will give to you, rest on the Sabbath of the Lord.
3 For six years you wil sow your field, for six years you wil prune your vineyard and gather its produce.	3 For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall care for your vineyard, and you shall gather its fruits.
4 But in the seventh year the land wil have a sabbatical rest, a Sabbath for Yahweh. You wil neithersow your field, nor prune your vineyard,	4 But in the seventh year, there shall be a Sabbath of the land, a resting of the Lord. You shall not sow your field, and you shall not care for your vineyard.
5 nor reap any grain which has grown of its own accord, nor gather the grapes from your untrimmedvine. It wil be a year of rest for the land.	5 What the soil shall spontaneously produce, you shall not harvest. And you shall not gather the grapes of the first-fruits as a crop. For it is a year of rest for the land.
6 But what the land produces in its Sabbath wil serve to feed you, your slave, male or female, youremployee and your guest residing with you;	6 But these shall be yours for food, for you and for your men and women servants, and for your hired hands, and for the newcomers who sojourn with you:
7 for your cattle too, and the wild animals of your country, whatever it produces wil serve as food.	7 all that grows on its own shall provide food for your beasts and cattle.
8 "You wil count seven weeks of years -- seven times seven years, that is to say a period of sevenweeks of years, forty-nine years.	8 You shall also number for yourselves seven weeks of years, that is, seven times seven, which together makes forty-nine years.
9 And on the tenth day of the seventh month you wil sound the trumpet; on the Day of Expiation you wilsound the trumpet throughout the land.	9 And you shall sound the trumpet in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, at the time of the atonement, throughout all your land.
10 You wil declare this fiftieth year to be sacred and proclaim the liberation of al the country'sinhabitants. You will keep this as a jubilee: each of you wil return to his ancestral property, each to his own clan.	10 And you shall sanctify the fiftieth year, and you shall proclaim a remission for all the inhabitants of your land: for the same is the Jubilee. A man shall return to his possession, and each one shall go back to his original family,
11 This fiftieth year wil be a jubilee year for you; in it you wil not sow, you wil not harvest the grain thathas come up on its own or in it gather grapes from your untrimmed vine.	11 for it is the Jubilee and the fiftieth year. You shall not sow, and you shall not reap what grows in the field of its own accord, and you shall not gather the first-fruits of the crop,
12 The jubilee wil be a holy thing for you; during it you wil eat whatever the fields produce.	12 due to the sanctification of the Jubilee. But you shall eat them as they present themselves.
13 "In this year of jubilee, each of you wil return to his ancestral property.	13 In the year of the Jubilee, all shall return to their possessions.
14 If you buy land from, or sell land to, your fel ow-countryman, neither of you may exploit the other.	14 When you will sell anything to your fellow citizen, or buy anything from him, do not cause your brother grief, but buy from him according to the number of years from the Jubilee,
15 In buying from your fel ow-countryman, you will take account of the number of years since the jubilee;the sale-price he fixes for you will depend on the number of productive years still to run.	15 and he shall sell to you according to the computation of the produce.
16 The greater the number of years, the higher the price you wil ask for it; the fewer the number ofyears, the greater the reduction; for what he is sel ing you is a certain number of harvests.	16 The more years that will remain after the Jubilee, the more the price shall increase, and the less the time is numbered, so much less shall the purchase price be. For he will sell to you the time for the produce.
17 So you wil not exploit one another, but fear your God, for I am Yahweh your God.	17 Do be willing to afflict your countrymen, but let each one fear his God. For I am the Lord your God.
18 "Hence, you wil put my laws and customs into practice; you will keep them and put them intopractice, and you wil live securely in the country.	18 Accomplish my precepts, and observe my judgments, and complete them, so that you may be able to live in the land without any fear,
19 The land wil give its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live in security.	19 and so that the soil may produce its fruits for you, from which you may eat, even to fullness, dreading violence by no one.
20 "In case you should ask: What shal we eat in this seventh year if we do not sow or harvest ourproduce?	20 But if you will say: What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we do not sow and do not gather our produce?
21 I shall order my blessing to be on you in the sixth year, which wil yield you enough produce for threeyears.	21 I will give my blessing to you in the sixth year, and it shall yield the produce of three years.
22 You wil have the old produce to eat while you are sowing in the eighth year, and even in the ninthyear, you wil be eating the old produce, while waiting for the harvest of that year.	22 And in the eighth year you shall sow, but you shall eat from the old produce, until the ninth year, until what is new matures, you shall eat what is old.
23 "Land wil not be sold absolutely, for the land belongs to me, and you are only strangers and guestsof mine.	23 Also, the land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for it is mine, and you are newcomers and settlers to me.
24 You wil al ow a right of redemption over any ancestral property.	24 Therefore, every region of your possession shall be sold under the condition of redemption.
25 If your brother becomes impoverished and sel s off part of his ancestral property, his nearest malerelative wil come and exercise his family rights over what his brother has sold.	25 If your brother, being in need, will have sold his little possession and his close relative is willing, he is able to redeem what he had sold.
26 The man who has no one to exercise this right may, once he has found the means to effect theredemption,	26 But if he has no near relative, and he himself is able to find the price to redeem it,
27 calculate the number of years that the alienation would have lasted, repay to the purchaser the sumdue for the time stil to run, and so recover his ancestral property.	27 the produce shall be calculated from that time when he sold it. And what is lacking, he shall repay to the buyer, and so he shall receive his possession.
28 If he cannot find the sum in compensation, the property sold will remain in the possession of thepurchaser until the jubilee year. In the jubilee year, the latter wil vacate it and return to his own ancestralproperty.	28 But if his hand will not have discovered a way to repay the price, the buyer shall have what he bought, until the year of the Jubilee. For in that year all that has been sold shall return to the owner, and to the original possessor.
29 "If anyone sel s a dwel ing house inside a wal ed town, he wil have the right of redemption until theexpiry of the year fol owing the sale. His right of redemption is limited to the year;	29 Whoever will have sold a house within the walls of a city shall have the freedom to redeem it, until one year has been completed.
30 and if the redemption has not been effected by the end of the year, the house in the wal ed town wilbecome the property of the purchaser and his descendants in perpetuity; he need not vacate it at the jubilee.	30 If he has not redeemed it, and the year will have turned full circle, the buyer and his posterity shall possess it, in perpetuity, and it is not able to be redeemed, even in the Jubilee.
31 But houses in villages not enclosed by wal s wil be considered as situated in the open country; theycarry the right of redemption, and the purchaser wil vacate them at the jubilee.	31 But if the house is in a village, which has no walls, it shall be sold by the law of the fields. If it has not been redeemed beforehand, then in the Jubilee it shall return to the owner.
32 "As regards the towns of the Levites, town houses forming part of their ancestral property wil carry aperpetual right of redemption in their favour.	32 The buildings of the Levites, which are in the cities, are always able to be redeemed.
33 If a Levite is the one to be affected by the right of redemption, at the jubilee he will vacate thepurchased property and return to his own home, to the town in which he has a title to property. The houses in theLevites' towns represent their ancestral property in Israel,	33 If they have not been redeemed, then in the Jubilee they shall return to the owners, for the houses of the cities of the Levites are for their possession among the sons of Israel.
34 and the arable land depending on these towns cannot be sold, being their ancestral property for ever.	34 But let not their suburbs be sold, for it is an everlasting possession.
35 "If your brother becomes impoverished and cannot support himself in the community, you wil assisthim as you would a stranger or guest, so that he can go on living with you.	35 If your brother has become impoverished, or infirm of hand, and you take him in, like a newcomer or a sojourner, and he lives with you,
36 Do not charge him interest on a loan, but fear your God, and let your brother live with you.	36 do not accept usury from him, nor anything more than what you gave. Fear your God, so that your brother may be able to live with you.
37 You wil not lend him money on interest or give him food to make a profit out of it.	37 You shall not give him your money by usury, nor exact from him an overabundance of produce.
38 I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and be yourGod.	38 I am the Lord your God, who led you away from the land of Egypt, so that I might give to you the land of Canaan, and so that I may be your God.
39 "If your brother becomes impoverished while with you and sells himself to you, you will not make himdo the work of a slave;	39 If your brother, having been compelled by poverty, will have sold himself to you, you shall not oppress him with the servitude of indentured servants.
40 you wil treat him like an employee or guest, and he wil work for you until the jubilee year.	40 But he shall be like a hired hand or a settler; he shall work with you, until the year of the Jubilee.
41 He wil then leave you, both he and his children, and return to his clan and regain possession of hisancestral property.	41 And after that, he shall depart with his children, and he shall return to his kindred, to the possession of his fathers.
42 For they are my servants whom I have brought out of Egypt, and they may not be bought and sold asslaves.	42 For these are my servants, and I led them away from the land of Egypt; let them not be sold into the condition of servitude.
43 You wil not oppress your brother-Israelites harshly but wil fear your God.	43 Do not afflict him by power, but be fearful of your God.
44 "The male and female slaves you have wil come from the nations round you; from these you maypurchase male and female slaves.	44 Let your male and female servants be from the nations which are all around you,
45 As slaves, you may also purchase the children of aliens resident among you, and also members oftheir families living with you who have been born on your soil; and they will become your property,	45 and from the newcomers who sojourn with you, or who have been born from them in your land. These you shall have as servants,
46 and you may leave them as a legacy to your sons after you as their perpetual possession. These youmay have for slaves; but you wil not oppress your brother-Israelites.	46 and, by the right of inheritance, you shall transmit them to your posterity, and you shall possess them forever. But do not oppress your brothers, the sons of Israel, by power.
47 "If a stranger or guest living with you gets rich and your brother, in the course of dealings with him,becomes impoverished and sel s himself to this stranger or guest, or to the descendant of a stranger's family,	47 If the hand of a newcomer or a sojourner will have grown strong among you, and your brother, having become impoverished, will have sold himself to him, or to any of his stock,
48 he wil enjoy the right of redemption after being sold, and one of his brothers may redeem him.	48 after the sale, he is able to be redeemed. Whoever is willing among his brothers shall redeem him:
49 His paternal uncle, his uncle's son, or a member of his own family may redeem him; if he has themeans, he may redeem himself.	49 either the paternal uncle, or the paternal uncle’s son, or his close relative, by blood or by affinity. But if he himself will be able also, he shall redeem himself,
50 By agreement with his purchaser, he wil count the number of years between the year of sale and thejubilee year; his sale-price will be proportionate to the number of years, his time being valued as that of anemployee.	50 considering only the years from the time of his selling until the year of the Jubilee, and calculating the money for which he was sold, according to the number of years and the accounting of a hired hand.
51 If there are stil many years to run, in proportion to their number he wil refund part of his sale-price aspayment for his redemption.	51 If there will have been many years which remain until the Jubilee, according to these shall he also repay the price.
52 And if there are only a few years stil to run before the jubilee year, he wil calculate with him whatshould be refunded for his redemption, in proportion to their number,	52 If few, he shall determine the accounting with him according to the number of years, and he shall repay to the buyer by what is left remaining of the years;
53 as though he were hired by the year. You wil see to it that he is not harshly oppressed.	53 his wages being charged by what served before. He shall not afflict him violently in your sight.
54 "If he has not been redeemed in any of these ways, he wil go free in the jubilee year, both he and hischildren;	54 But if, by these means, he will not be able to be redeemed, then in the year of the Jubilee he shall depart with his children.
55 for the Israelites are my servants; they are my servants whom I brought out of Egypt. I am Yahwehyour God." '	55 For they are my servants, the sons of Israel, whom I led away from the land of Egypt.