Leviticus 25:24-51

²⁴You must observe the right of redemption for all the land that you acquire; you must allow the land to be bought back by the family from whom you bought it.

²⁵If your fellow Israelite became poor and for that reason sold some of his property, then his nearest relative may come and buy back the property that he sold to you.

²⁶If a man has no relative to redeem his property, but if he has prospered and has the ability to redeem it,

²⁷then he may calculate the years since the land was sold and repay the balance to the man to whom he sold it. Then he may return to his own property.

²⁸But if he is not able to get the land back for himself, then the land he has sold will remain in the ownership of the one who bought it until the year of Jubilee. At the year of Jubilee, the land will be returned to the man who sold it, and the original owner will return to his property.

²⁹If a man sells a house in a walled city, then he may buy it back within a whole year after it was sold. For a full year he will have the right of redemption.

³⁰If the house is not redeemed within a full year, then the house in the walled city will become the permanent property of the buyer and his descendants. It is not to be returned in the year of Jubilee.

³¹But the houses of the villages that have no wall around them will be considered as the field of the land. They may be redeemed, and they must be returned during the year of Jubilee.

³²However, the houses owned by the Levites in their cities may be redeemed at any time.

³³If one of the Levites does not redeem a house he sold, then the house that was sold in the city where it is located must be returned in the year of Jubilee, for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their property among the people of Israel.

³⁴But the fields around their cities may not be sold because they are the permanent property of the Levites.

³⁵If your fellow countryman becomes poor, so that he can no longer provide for himself, then you must help him as you would help a foreigner or anyone else living as an outsider among you.

³⁶Do not charge him interest or try to profit from him in any way, but honor your God so that your brother may keep living with you.

³⁷You must not give him a loan of money and charge interest, nor sell him your food to earn a profit.

³⁸I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, in order that I might give you the land of Canaan, and that I might be your God.

³⁹If your fellow countryman has become poor and sells himself to you, you must not make him work like a slave.

⁴⁰Treat him as a hired servant. He must be like someone living temporarily with you. He will serve with you until the year of Jubilee.

⁴¹Then he will go away from you, he and his children with him, and he will return to his own family and to his fathers' property.

⁴²For they are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. They will not be sold as slaves.

⁴³You must not rule over them harshly, but you must honor your God.

⁴⁴As for your male and female slaves, whom you can obtain from the nations who live around you, you may buy slaves from them.

⁴⁵You may also buy slaves from the foreigners who are living among you, that is, from their families who are with you, children who have been born in your land. They may become your property.

⁴⁶You may provide such slaves as an inheritance for your children after you, to hold as property, and make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your brothers among the people of Israel with harshness.

⁴⁷If a foreigner or someone living temporarily with you has become wealthy, and if one of your fellow Israelites has become poor and sells himself to that foreigner, or to someone in a foreigner's family,

⁴⁸after your fellow Israelite has been bought, he may be bought back. Someone in his family may redeem him.

⁴⁹It might be the person's uncle, or his uncle's son, who redeems him, or anyone who is his close relative from his family. Or, if he has become prosperous, he may redeem himself.

⁵⁰He must bargain with the man who bought him; they must count the years from the year he sold himself to his purchaser until the year of Jubilee. The price of his redemption must be figured in keeping with the rate paid to a hired servant, for the number of years he might continue to work for the one who bought him.

⁵¹If there are still many years until the year of Jubilee, he must pay back as the price for his redemption an amount of money that is in proportion to the number of those years.