Study Desk

" 'In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to his own property.

" 'If you sell land to one of your countrymen or buy any from him, do not take advantage of each other.

You are to buy from your countryman on the basis of the number of years since the Jubilee. And he is to sell to you on the basis of the number of years left for harvesting crops.

When the years are many, you are to increase the price, and when the years are few, you are to decrease the price, because what he is really selling you is the number of crops.

Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. I am the LORD your God.

" 'Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land.

Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety.

You may ask, "What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?"

I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years.

While you plant during the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in.

" 'The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants.

Throughout the country that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land.

" 'If one of your countrymen becomes poor and sells some of his property, his nearest relative is to come and redeem what his countryman has sold.

If, however, a man has no one to redeem it for him but he himself prospers and acquires sufficient means to redeem it,

he is to determine the value for the years since he sold it and refund the balance to the man to whom he sold it; he can then go back to his own property.

But if he does not acquire the means to repay him, what he sold will remain in the possession of the buyer until the Year of Jubilee. It will be returned in the Jubilee, and he can then go back to his property.