Study Desk

'You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow, nor harvest its aftergrowth, nor gather grapes from its untrimmed vines.

'For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You shall eat its produce from the field.

'On this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his own property.

'Furthermore, if you make a sale to your friend, or buy from your friend's hand, you shall not wrong one another.

'Corresponding to the number of years after the jubilee, you shall buy from your friend; he is to sell to you according to the number of years of crops.

'In proportion to a greater number of years you shall increase its price, and in proportion to fewer years you shall decrease its price, because it is the number of crops that he is selling to you.

'So you shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the LORD your God.

'You shall therefore follow My statutes and keep My judgments so as to carry them out, so that you may live securely on the land.

'The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, because the land is Mine; for you are only strangers and residents with Me.

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 property.

'But if he has not found sufficient means to get it back for 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, so that he may return to his property.

'The houses of the villages, however, which have no surrounding wall, shall be regarded as open fields; they have redemption rights and revert in the jubilee.

'But pasture fields of their cities shall not be sold, for that is their permanent possession.

'You shall not give him your silver at interest, nor your food for profit.

'Now if a countryman of yours becomes so poor with regard to you that he sells himself to you, you shall not subject him to a slave's service.

'He shall be with you as a hired worker, as if he were a foreign resident; he shall serve with you up to the year of jubilee.

'He shall then leave you, he and his sons with him, and shall go back to his family, so that he may return to the property of his forefathers.

'You shall not rule over him with severity, but are to revere your God.

'You may also pass them on as an inheritance to your sons after you, to receive as a possession; you can use them as permanent slaves. But in respect to your countrymen, the sons of Israel, you shall not rule with severity over one another.

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