Leviticus 25 - EasyEnglish Bible 2024（EASY）

Chapter 25Rules about the Sabbath Year of rest for the land

1When Moses was on Mount Sinai, the Lord said to him,

2‘Tell Israel's people this:

You will go into the land that I will give to you. Then the land must have a rest every seven years. That will give me honour.

3For six years, you may plant seeds in your fields. You may take care of your vines. You may bring home your crops at harvest time.

4But in the seventh year, the land must have a complete rest. It is a Sabbath year to give honour to the Lord. You must not plant seeds in your fields. You must not take care of your vines.

5You must not cut your crops or your grapes at harvest time. The land must have a year of complete rest.

6But some things will still grow on the land during that year. You may eat anything that grows by itself in the Sabbath year. That will be food for you and for your servants. It will be food for the people that you pay to work for you. And it will be food for the foreign people who are living with you.

7The land will also provide food for your farm animals and for the wild animals. You may eat any food that the land provides during that year.

Rules about the Jubilee Year

8You must also count seven Sabbath years. That is seven times seven years, or 49 years.

9In the 50th year you must make a loud noise with trumpets everywhere in your land. Do that on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement.

10You must make sure that the 50th year is a special holy year. It is a happy Jubilee year. It is a time for everyone in the land to become free from their debts. Anyone who has sold his family's land will receive it back again. Slaves will return to live with their own people.

11The 50th year is a Jubilee year for you. You must not plant any seeds in your fields. You must not cut your crops at harvest time. You must not pick any grapes from your vines.

12It is a Jubilee year for you. You must keep it as a holy year. You may only eat food that grows by itself in your fields.

Rules about land and houses

13In the Jubilee year you will all return to the land that belongs to your family.

14At any time, if you agree with someone to buy or sell land, you must be fair.

15If you buy some land, you must count the number of years until the next Jubilee year. That will decide the fair price for you to pay. You are paying for the number of years that you can grow crops on the land.

16If there are many years until the Jubilee year, the price of the land will be larger. If only a few years remain, the price will be smaller. The other man is selling you a certain number of years when you will get crops from the land.

17Do not cheat each other. Respect and obey your God. I am the Lord your God.

18You must obey my rules and my laws. If you are careful to do that, you will live safely in the land.

19The land will provide plenty of food for you to eat. You will live there safely.

20You may think, “If we do not plant any seeds in the seventh year, what food will we eat?”

21This is what will happen. I will bless the land in the sixth year so that it grows a lot of food for you. It will provide enough crops to give you food for three years!

22When you plant seeds in the eighth year, you will still be eating your old crops. You will be eating food that the land provided in the sixth year. You will continue to eat those old crops until you bring home new crops in the ninth year.

23You must never sell your land so that it completely belongs to someone else. The land always belongs to me, the Lord. I allow you to live on it for a time, like foreigners.

24Anybody who sells land must always have the chance to buy it back again.

25If an Israelite becomes poor, he may need to sell some of his land. If so, the person who has authority in his family must buy the land back from the new owner.

26There might not be anyone in the man's family who can do that. Later, the man himself may have enough money to buy the land back again.

27He must count how many years remain until the next Jubilee year. He must pay the value of those years to the man that he sold the land to. Then it will become his own land again.

28But the man may never have enough money to pay the value of the land. If so, the land that he sold will belong to the other person until the next Jubilee year. When the Jubilee year comes, the new owner must return the land to the poor man who sold it. Then the man can return to live on his land again.

29It is different for a house inside a city that has walls. If someone sells his house in a city, he may buy it back in the first year. For one complete year after he has sold it, he has the chance to buy it back.

30If the man does not buy back the house in that year, it will completely belong to the new owner. It will continue to belong to him and to his descendants for ever. They will not have to return it in the Jubilee year.

31But a house may be in a village that has no walls around it. If someone sells the house, it is the same as a piece of land like a field. The person who sells it must always have the chance to buy it back again. If not, when the Jubilee year comes, the house will belong again to the first owner.

32Some cities belong to the Levites for them to live in. If a Levite sells his house, he must always have the chance to buy it back again.

33When the Jubilee year comes, a house that a Levite has sold will belong to him again. This is because the Levites need to live in the houses that belong to them in their cities. The other Israelite tribes have given those places to the Levites.

34But the Levites must never sell the fields that are around their cities. That land belongs to them for ever.

Rules about debts and slaves

35If an Israelite becomes poor, he may not be able to take care of himself. You must help him with the things that he needs. Help him to live with you, as you would help a foreigner or a stranger.

36If you lend money to him, do not take back more than you gave him. Respect and obey your God. Allow the poor man to live with you as part of your family.

37If you lend money to him, or you sell food to him, do not take more than its true value.

38I am the Lord your God who rescued you from the land of Egypt. Now I am giving you the land of Canaan. I have done this to be your God.

39If a poor Israelite is in debt to you, he might sell himself to you. But you must not make him work for you as a slave.

40Instead, you must pay him to work as your servant, or like a foreigner who is living with you. He must work for you until the next Jubilee year.

41In the Jubilee year, he will be free to leave. He and his children can go back to his own family on the land that belongs to his ancestors.

42Israel's people are my servants. I brought them out of Egypt. So nobody may buy them as slaves.

43You must not be cruel to poor people. Instead, respect and obey your God.

44You are allowed to buy male and female slaves, if they are people from other nations.

45You may also buy people from the families of foreign people who live among you. The children that they give birth to in your land may also become your slaves.

46Foreign slaves may continue to belong to you for your whole life. After you die, they can belong to your children. But you must not make other Israelites your slaves. You must not be cruel to them.

47A foreign person who lives with you might become rich. A poor Israelite might be in debt to him. So the Israelite might sell himself to the foreigner or to someone from the foreigner's family.

48Someone from the family of the poor Israelite always has the chance to buy him back.

49It may be his brother, his uncle or his cousin. Anyone from his own family may buy him back so that he is free again. And if the poor man himself has success, he can pay to make himself free.

50The poor man and the foreign man who bought him must decide together the fair price. They must count the number of years that remain until the next Jubilee year. They must decide how much pay a worker would receive during that time. That is the right price for the poor Israelite man to become free.

51Many years may remain until the Jubilee year. If so, the man must pay most of the sale money to be free.

52If only a few years remain, the man will pay a smaller price to become free.

53The foreign person who has bought the Israelite man must pay him each year, as he would pay a worker. Do not allow the foreign owner to be cruel to the Israelite.

54When the Jubilee year comes, the poor Israelite man must go free, if he has not already become free. His children will go free with him.

55Israel's people are my own servants. They belong to me because I rescued them from the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.’