Study Desk

'So you shall consecrate the fiftieth year and ^(C1)proclaim ^(F1)a release throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, ^(F2)and ^(C2)each of you shall return to his own property, ^(F2)and each of you shall return to his family.

'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.

'^(C1)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, ^(C1)you shall not ^(F1)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.

'^(C1)In proportion to ^(F1)a greater number of years you shall increase its price, and in proportion to ^(F2)fewer years you shall decrease its price, because it is the number of crops that he is selling to you.

'So ^(C1)you shall not ^(F1)wrong one another, but you shall ^(F2)fear your God; for I am the LORD your God.

'You shall therefore ^(F1)follow My statutes and keep My judgments so as to carry them out, so that ^(C1)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.

'But if you say, "^(C1)What are we going to eat in the seventh year if we do not sow nor gather in our produce?"

then ^(C1)I will so order My blessing for you in the sixth year that it will bring forth the produce for three years.

'When you are sowing the eighth year, you can still eat ^(C1)old things from the produce, eating the old until the ninth year when its produce comes in.

'The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, because ^(C1)the land is Mine; for ^(C2)you are only strangers and residents with Me.

'So for every ^(F1)piece of your property, you are to provide for the redemption of the land.

'^(C1)If a fellow countryman of yours becomes so poor that he sells part of his property, then his closest ^(F1)redeemer is to come and buy back what his relative has sold.

'Or in case someone has no redeemer, but ^(F1)recovers to find sufficient means for its redemption,

^(C1)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 ^(F1)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 ^(F2)revert, so that ^(C1)he may return to his property.

'Likewise, if a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city, then his redemption right remains valid until a full year after its sale; his right of redemption lasts a full year.

'But if it is not bought back 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 ^(F1)revert in the jubilee.

'The houses of the villages, however, which have no surrounding wall, shall be regarded ^(F1)as open fields; they have redemption rights and ^(F2)revert in the jubilee.

'As for the ^(C1)cities of the Levites, the Levites have a permanent right of redemption for the houses of the cities which are their possession.

'What, therefore, ^(F1)belongs to the Levites may be redeemed, and a house sale ^(F2)in the city of this possession ^(F3)reverts in the jubilee, because the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the sons of Israel.

'^(C1)But pasture fields of their cities shall not be sold, for that is their permanent possession.