The Sabbath Year

25 While Moses was on Mount Sinai, the Lord said to him, ² “Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. When you have entered the land I am giving you, the land itself must observe a Sabbath rest before the Lord every seventh year. ³ For six years you may plant your fields and prune your vineyards and harvest your crops, ⁴ but during the seventh year the land must have a Sabbath year of complete rest. It is the Lord’s Sabbath. Do not plant your fields or prune your vineyards during that year. ⁵ And don’t store away the crops that grow on their own or gather the grapes from your unpruned vines. The land must have a year of complete rest. ⁶ But you may eat whatever the land produces on its own during its Sabbath. This applies to you, your male and female servants, your hired workers, and the temporary residents who live with you. ⁷ Your livestock and the wild animals in your land will also be allowed to eat what the land produces.

¹⁸ “If you want to live securely in the land, follow my decrees and obey my regulations. ¹⁹ Then the land will yield large crops, and you will eat your fill and live securely in it. ²⁰ But you might ask, ‘What will we eat during the seventh year, since we are not allowed to plant or harvest crops that year?’ ²¹ Be assured that I will send my blessing for you in the sixth year, so the land will produce a crop large enough for three years. ²² When you plant your fields in the eighth year, you will still be eating from the large crop of the sixth year. In fact, you will still be eating from that large crop when the new crop is harvested in the ninth year.

Redemption of Property

²³ “The land must never be sold on a permanent basis, for the land belongs to me. You are only foreigners and tenant farmers working for me.

²⁴ “With every purchase of land you must grant the seller the right to buy it back.