Deuteronomy 15

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¹In the seventh year thou shalt make remission,

²that shall be fulfilled by this order. To whom anything is owed, of his friend, either neighbour, and brother, he shall not be able to ask it, for it is the year of remission, or forgiveness, of the Lord.

³Thou shalt ask it of a pilgrim, that is, a stranger, or he that is not of the faith of Jews, and of a comeling; thou hast no power to ask it of a citizen and of a neighbour;

⁴and utterly a needy man and a beggar shall not be among you, that thy Lord God bless thee, in the land which he shall give to thee into possession.

⁵If nevertheless thou shalt hear the voice of thy Lord God, and shalt keep all things which he commanded, and which I command today to thee,

⁶he shall bless thee, as he promised. Thou shalt lend to many folks, and thou shalt not take borrowing of any man; thou shalt be lord of full many nations, and no man shall be lord of thee.

⁷If one of thy brethren that dwell within the gates of thy city, in the land which thy Lord God shall give to thee, cometh to poverty, thou shalt not make hard thine heart, neither thou shalt withdraw thine hand,

⁸but thou shalt open it to the poor man, and thou shalt lend him whatso thou seest him have need to.

⁹Be thou ware lest peradventure a wicked thought creep privily to thee, and thou say in thine heart, The seventh year of remission, nigheth; and thou turn away thine eyes from thy poor brother, and thou wilt not give to him the loan that he asketh; lest he cry against thee to the Lord, and it be made to thee into sin.

¹⁰But thou shalt give to him, and thou shalt not do anything falsely in relieving his needs, that thy Lord God bless thee in all time, and in all things to which thou shalt put to thine hand.

¹¹Poor men shall not fail in the land of thy dwelling; therefore I command to thee, that thou open thy hand to thy brother needy poor, that live with thee in the land.

¹²When thy brother, an Hebrew man, either an Hebrew woman, is sold to thee, and hath served thee six years, in the seventh year thou shalt deliver him free.

¹³And thou shalt not suffer him go away from thee void, to whom thou hast given freedom;

¹⁴but thou shalt give him lifelode in the way, of thy flocks, and of thy cornfloor, and of thy presser or wine press, in which thy Lord God hath blessed thee.

¹⁵Have thou mind that also thou servedest in the land of Egypt, and thy Lord God delivered thee, and therefore I command now to thee.

¹⁶But if he say, I will not go out, for he loveth thee, and thine house, and he feeleth that it is well to him with thee,

¹⁷thou shalt take an awl, and thou shalt pierce his ear in the door of thine house, and he shall serve thee till into the world; also thou shalt do in like manner to an handmaid.

¹⁸Thou shalt not turn away from them thine eyes, when thou shalt deliver them free, for by the hire of an hired man they served thee by six years; that thy Lord God bless thee, in all the works which thou doest.

¹⁹Of the first engendered things that be born in thy droves, and in thy sheep, whatever is of male kind, thou shalt hallow to thy Lord God. Thou shalt not work with the first engend-ered thing of oxen, and thou shalt not shear the first engendered things of sheep.

²⁰Thou shalt eat those or them by all years in the sight of thy Lord God, thou, and thine house, in the place which the Lord choose.

²¹And if it have a wem, either is crooked, either blind, either is foul, either feeble in any part, it shall not be offered to thy Lord God;

²²but thou shalt eat it within the gates of thy city, both a clean man and an unclean shall eat of those or them in like manner, as of a capret, and of an hart.

²³Only thou shalt keep this, that thou eat not the blood of those or them, but shed or pour it out as water into the earth.