Leviticus 25:2-32

²“Tell the Israelites: When you enter the land that I'm giving you, the land itself must also observe a Sabbath rest in honor of the Lord.

³Six years you can cultivate your fields, take care of your vineyards, and harvest your crops.

⁴But the seventh year is to be a Sabbath of complete rest for the land, a Sabbath in honor of the Lord. Don't plant your fields or care for your vineyards.

⁵Don't harvest what may have grown up in your fields, or collect the grapes from your vineyards that you haven't cared for. The land is to have a year of complete rest.

⁶You can eat whatever the land produces during the Sabbath year. This applies to yourself, your male and female slaves, paid workers and foreigners who live with you,

⁷and to your livestock and the wild animals living in your land. Whatever grows can be used for food.

⁸Count seven ‘sabbaths’ of years, in other words, seven times seven years, so that the seven sabbaths of years come to forty-nine years.

⁹Then blow the trumpet all through the country on the tenth day of the seventh month, which is the Day of Atonement. Make sure this signal is heard throughout your whole country.

¹⁰You are to dedicate the fiftieth year and announce freedom everywhere in the country for all who live there. This is to be your Jubilee, when each of you is to return to reclaim your property and to be part of your family once more.

¹¹The fiftieth year will be a Jubilee for you. Don't sow the land; don't harvest what may have grown up in your fields, or collect the grapes from your vineyards that you haven't cared for.

¹²It is a Jubilee and it is to be holy to you. You can eat whatever the land produces.

¹³In this Jubilee Year, every one of you shall return to your own property.

¹⁴If you sell land to your neighbor, or buy land from him, don't exploit one another.

¹⁵When you buy from your neighbor work out how many years have passed since the last Jubilee, for he is to sell to you depending on how many years of harvest remain.

¹⁶The more years that are left, the more you shall pay; the fewer years that are left, the less you shall pay, because he is actually selling you a specific number of harvests.

¹⁷Don't exploit one another, but have respect for your God, because I am the Lord your God.

¹⁸Keep my rules and observe my regulations, so you can live in safety in the land.

¹⁹Then the land will produce good harvest, so you will have plenty to eat and live in safety there.

²⁰But if you ask, ‘What are we going to in the seventh year if we do not sow or harvest our crops?’

²¹I will bless you in the sixth year, so that the land will produce a crop that will be enough for three years.

²²As you sow in the eighth year, you will still be eating from that harvest, which will last until your harvest in the ninth year.

²³Land must not be permanently sold, because it really belongs to me. To me you are only foreigners and travelers passing through.

²⁴So whatever land you buy to own, you must make arrangements so it can be returned to its original owner.

²⁵If one of your people becomes poor and sells you some of their land, their close family can come and buy back what they have sold.

²⁶However, if they don't have anyone who can buy it back, but in the meantime their financial situation improves and they have enough to buy back the land,

²⁷they will work how many years it has been since the sale, and pay back the balance to the person who bought it, and go back to their property

²⁸If they can't raise enough to pay the person back for the land, the buyer will remain its owner until the Jubilee Year. But in the Jubilee the land will be returned so that the original owner can so that they can go back to their property.

²⁹If someone sells a house located in a walled town, they have the right to buy it back for a full year after selling it. It can be bought back any time during that year.

³⁰If it isn't bought back be the end of a full year, then ownership of the house in the walled town is permanently transferred to the one who bought it and their descendants. It won't be returned in the Jubilee.

³¹But houses in villages that don't have walls around them are to be treated as located in the fields. They can be bought back, and will be returned in the Jubilee.

³²However, the Levites always have the right to buy back their houses in the towns that belong to them.