The LORD spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘When you come into the land which I am giving you, then the land shall keep a Sabbath to the LORD. For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its crop. But in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of rest for the land, a Sabbath to the LORD; you shall not sow [seed in] your field nor prune your vineyard. Whatever reseeds itself (uncultivated) in your harvest you shall not reap, nor shall you gather the grapes from your uncultivated vine, it shall be a year of sabbatical rest for the land. And all of you shall have for food whatever the [untilled] land produces during its Sabbath year; yourself, and your male and female slaves, your hired servant, and the foreigners who reside among you, even your domestic animals and the [wild] animals that are in your land shall have all its crops to eat.
‘You are also to count off seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years, so that you have the time of the seven Sabbaths of years, namely, forty-nine years. Then you shall sound the ram’s horn everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month (almost October); on the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout your land. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim freedom [for the slaves] throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee (year of remission) for you, and each of you shall return to his own [ancestral] property [that was sold to another because of poverty], and each of you shall return to his family [from whom he was separated by bondage]. That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee for you; you shall not sow [seed], nor reap what reseeds itself, nor gather the grapes of the uncultivated vines. For it is the Jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat its crops out of the field.
‘In this Year of Jubilee each of you shall return to his own [ancestral] property. If you sell anything to your friend or buy from your friend, you shall not wrong one another. According to the number of years after the Jubilee, you shall buy from your friend. And he is to sell to you according to the number of years of crops [which may be harvested before you must restore the property to him]. If the years [until the next Jubilee] are many, you shall increase the price, but if the years remaining are few, you shall reduce the price, because it is the number of crops that he is selling to you. You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God [with profound reverence]; for I am the LORD your God.
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