Leviticus 25:1-13

Common English Bible

The sabbatical year

25 The Lord said to Moses on Mount Sinai, ² Speak to the Israelites and say to them: Once you enter the land that I am giving you, the land must celebrate a sabbath rest to the Lord. ³ You will plant your fields for six years, and prune your vineyards and gather their crops for six years. ⁴ But in the seventh year the land will have a special sabbath rest, a Sabbath to the Lord: You must not plant your fields or prune your vineyards. ⁵ You must not harvest the secondary growth of your produce or gather the grapes of your freely growing vines. It will be a year of special rest for the land. ⁶ Whatever the land produces during its sabbath will be your food—for you, for your male and female servants, and for your hired laborers and foreign guests who live with you, ⁷ as well as for your livestock and for the wild animals in your land. All of the land’s produce can be eaten.

The Jubilee year

⁸ Count off seven weeks of years—that is, seven times seven—so that the seven weeks of years totals forty-nine years. ⁹ Then have the trumpet^[a] blown on the tenth day of the seventh month.^[b] Have the trumpet blown throughout your land on the Day of Reconciliation. ¹⁰ You will make the fiftieth year holy, proclaiming freedom throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It will be a Jubilee year^[c] for you: each of you must return to your family property and to your extended family. ¹¹ The fiftieth year will be a Jubilee year for you. Do not plant, do not harvest the secondary growth, and do not gather from the freely growing vines ¹² because it is a Jubilee: it will be holy to you. You can eat only the produce directly out of the field. ¹³ Each of you must return to your family property in this year of Jubilee.