Study Desk

"Bring the one who has cursed outside the camp, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head; then let all the congregation stone him.

And you shall speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘If anyone curses his God, then he will bear his sin.

If a man injures his neighbor, just as he has done, so it shall be done to him:

You shall thus set apart as holy the fiftieth year and proclaim a release through the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his own possession of land, and each of you shall return to his family.

‘On this year of jubilee, each of you shall return to his own possession of land.

‘If a brother of yours becomes so poor he has to sell part of his possession of land, then his nearest kinsman redeemer is to come and redeem what his brother has sold.

Or in case a man has no kinsman redeemer, but recovers his means and finds sufficient payment for its redemption,

then he shall calculate the years since its sale and return the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and so return to his possession of land.

But if he has not found sufficient means to return it to himself, then what he has sold shall remain in the hands of its purchaser until the year of jubilee; but at the jubilee it shall revert, that he may return to his possession of land.

‘Likewise, if a man sells a house for habitation in a walled city, then his redemption right remains valid until a full year from its sale; his right of redemption lasts a full year.

But if it is not redeemed for him within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city passes permanently to its purchaser throughout his generations; it does not revert in the jubilee.

‘Now if a brother of yours becomes poor and his means with regard to you falter, then you are to sustain him, like a sojourner or a foreign resident, that he may live with you.

He shall then go out from you, he and his sons with him, and shall return to his family, that he may return to the possession of the land of his fathers.

then he shall have redemption right after he has been sold. One of his brothers may redeem him,

or his uncle or his uncle's son may redeem him, or one of his blood relatives from his family may redeem him; or if he prospers, he may redeem himself.

He then with his purchaser shall calculate from the year when he sold himself to him up to the year of jubilee; and the price of his sale shall correspond to the number of years. It is like the days of a hired man that he shall be with him.

If there are still many years, he shall return part of his purchase price in proportion to them for his own redemption;

and if few years remain until the year of jubilee, he shall so calculate with him. In proportion to his years he shall return the amount for his redemption.

Even if he is not redeemed by these means, he shall still go out in the year of jubilee, he and his sons with him.

‘Now if a man sets his house apart as holy to Yahweh, then the priest shall value it as either good or bad; as the priest values it, so it shall stand.