Leviticus 25:1-34

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. ‘Therefore you shall carry out My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them, so that you may live securely on the land. Then the land will yield its produce, so that you can eat your fill and live securely on it. And if you say, “What are we going to eat in the seventh year if we do not sow [seed] or gather in our crops?” then [this is My answer:] I will order My [special] blessing for you in the sixth year, so that it will produce [sufficient] crops for three years. When you are sowing the eighth year, you can still eat old things from the crops, eating the old until the ninth year when its crop comes in. ‘The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; you are [only] foreigners and temporary residents with Me. [Heb 11:13; 1 Pet 2:11-17] So in all the country that you possess, you are to provide for the redemption of the land [in the Year of Jubilee]. ‘If a fellow countryman of yours becomes so poor he has to sell some of his property, then his nearest relative is to come and buy back (redeem) what his relative has sold. Or in case a man has no relative [to redeem his property], but he has become more prosperous and has enough to buy it back, then he shall calculate the years since its sale and refund the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and so return to his [ancestral] property. [1 Kin 21:2, 3] But if he is unable to redeem it, then what he has sold shall remain in the hands of the purchaser until the Year of Jubilee; but at the Jubilee it shall revert, and he may return to his property. ‘If a man sells a house in a walled city, then his right of redemption remains valid for a full year after its sale; his right of redemption lasts a full year. But if it is not redeemed for him within a full year, then the house that is in the walled city passes permanently and irrevocably to the purchaser throughout his generations. It does not revert back in the Year of Jubilee. The houses of the villages that have no surrounding walls, however, shall be considered as open fields. They may be redeemed, and revert in the Year of Jubilee. As for the cities of the Levites, the Levites have a permanent right of redemption for the houses in the cities which they possess. Therefore, what is [purchased] from the Levites may be redeemed [by a Levite], and the house that was sold in the city they possess reverts in the Year of Jubilee, for the houses in the Levite cities are their [ancestral] property among the Israelites. But the pasture lands of their cities may not be sold, for that is their permanent possession.