The Year for Canceling Debts

At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts.

This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel any loan they have made to a fellow Israelite. They shall not require payment from anyone among their own people, because the Lord’s time for canceling debts has been proclaimed.

You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your fellow Israelite owes you.

Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: “The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near,” so that you do not show ill will toward the needy among your fellow Israelites and give them nothing. They may then appeal to the Lord against you, and you will be found guilty of sin.

Do not take a pair of millstones—not even the upper one—as security for a debt, because that would be taking a person’s livelihood as security.

Then Moses commanded them: “At the end of every seven years, in the year for canceling debts, during the Festival of Tabernacles,

All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their commander. About four hundred men were with him.

She went and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left.”

“When the neighboring peoples bring merchandise or grain to sell on the Sabbath, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on any holy day. Every seventh year we will forgo working the land and will cancel all debts.

The fatherless child is snatched from the breast; the infant of the poor is seized for a debt.

Saying 4

Do not be one who shakes hands in pledge or puts up security for debts;

it will be the same for priest as for people, for the master as for his servant, for the mistress as for her servant, for seller as for buyer, for borrower as for lender, for debtor as for creditor.

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

“But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.

“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to.

Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.” “You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

“So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’

Love Fulfills the Law

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.