Leviticus 25:1-17

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.

¹⁴ When you sell something to or buy something from your fellow citizen, you must not cheat each other. ¹⁵ You will buy from your fellow citizen according to the number of years since the Jubilee; he will sell to you according to the number of years left for harvests. ¹⁶ You will raise the price if there are more years, or lower the price if there are less years because it is the number of harvests that are being sold to you. ¹⁷ You must not cheat each other but fear your God because I am the Lord your God.