The Sabbath Year

25 ^(A)The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, ² “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into ^(B)the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. ³ For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, ⁴ but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. ^5 (C)You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. ⁶ The Sabbath of the land^[a] shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves^[b] and for your hired worker and the sojourner who lives with you, ⁷ and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: ^(D)all its yield shall be for food.

The Year of Jubilee

⁸ “You shall count seven weeks^[c] of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. ⁹ Then you shall sound ^(E)the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. ^(F)On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. ¹⁰ And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and ^(G)proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of ^(H)you shall return to his clan. ¹¹ That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it ^(I)you shall neither sow nor reap ^(J)what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. ¹² For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. ^(K)You may eat the produce of the field.^[d]

^13 (L)“In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property. ¹⁴ And if you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, ^(M)you shall not wrong one another. ^15 (N)You shall pay your neighbor according to the number of years after the jubilee, and he shall sell to you according to the number of years for crops. ¹⁶ If the years are many, you shall increase the price, and if the years are few, you shall reduce the price, for it is the number of the crops that he is selling to you. ^17 (O)You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God.

^18 (P)“Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then ^(Q)you will dwell in the land securely. ^19 (R)The land will yield its fruit, and ^(S)you will eat your fill ^(T)and dwell in it securely. ²⁰ And if you say, ^(U)‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if ^(V)we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ ²¹ I will ^(W)command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. ^22 (X)When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of ^(Y)the old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives.

Redemption of Property

²³ “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for ^(Z)the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me. ²⁴ And in all the country you possess, you shall allow a redemption of the land.

²⁵ “If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his property, ^(AA)then his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his brother has sold. ²⁶ If a man has no one to redeem it and then himself becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it, ²⁷ let ^(AB)him calculate the years since he sold it and pay back the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and then return to his property. ²⁸ But if he does not have sufficient means to recover it, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of the buyer until the year of jubilee. In the jubilee it shall ^(AC)be released, and ^(AD)he shall return to his property.

²⁹ “If a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city, he may redeem it within a year of its sale. For a full year he shall have the right of redemption. ³⁰ If it is not redeemed within a full year, then the house in the walled city shall belong in perpetuity to the buyer, throughout his generations; ^(AE)it shall not be released in the jubilee. ³¹ But the houses of the villages that have no wall around them shall be classified with the fields of the land. They may be redeemed, and ^(AF)they shall be released in the jubilee. ³² As for ^(AG)the cities of the Levites, the Levites may redeem at any time the houses in the cities they possess. ³³ And if one of the Levites exercises his right of redemption, then the house that was sold in a city they possess shall be released in the jubilee. For the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the people of Israel. ³⁴ But the fields ^(AH)of pastureland belonging to their cities may not be sold, for that is their possession forever.

Kindness for Poor Brothers

³⁵ “If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, ^(AI)you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. ^36 (AJ)Take no interest from him or profit, but ^(AK)fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. ^37 (AL)You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. ^38 (AM)I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.

^39 (AN)“If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: ⁴⁰ he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. ^41 (AO)Then he shall go out from you, ^(AP)he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return ^(AQ)to the possession of his fathers. ⁴² For they are ^(AR)my servants,^[e] whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. ^43 (AS)You shall not rule over him ^(AT)ruthlessly but ^(AU)shall fear your God. ⁴⁴ As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. ^45 (AV)You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. ⁴⁶ You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel ^(AW)you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.

Redeeming a Poor Man

⁴⁷ “If a stranger or sojourner with you becomes rich, and ^(AX)your brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner with you or to a member of the stranger's clan, ⁴⁸ then after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him, ⁴⁹ or his uncle or his cousin may ^(AY)redeem him, or a close relative from his clan may redeem him. Or if he ^(AZ)grows rich he may redeem himself. ⁵⁰ He shall calculate with his buyer from the year when he sold himself to him until the year of jubilee, and the price of his sale shall vary with the number of years. The time he was with his owner shall be ^(BA)rated as the time of a hired worker. ⁵¹ If there are still many years left, he shall pay proportionately for his redemption some of his sale price. ⁵² If there remain but a few years until the year of jubilee, he shall calculate and pay for his redemption in proportion to his years of service. ⁵³ He shall treat him as a worker hired year by year. ^(BB)He shall not rule ruthlessly over him in your sight. ⁵⁴ And if he is not redeemed by these means, then ^(BC)he and his children with him shall be released in the year of jubilee. ⁵⁵ For it is ^(BD)to me that the people of Israel are servants.^[f] They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

Blessed Are the Forgiven

A Maskil^[a] of David.

Keep the King's Command

² I say:^[a] Keep the king's command, because of ^(C)God's oath to him.^{[b] 3} Be not hasty to ^(D)go from his presence. Do not take your stand in an evil cause, for he does whatever he pleases. ⁴ For the word of the king is supreme, and ^(E)who may say to him, “What are you doing?” ⁵ Whoever keeps a command will know no evil thing, and the wise heart will know the proper time and the just way.^{[c] 6} For there is a time and a way ^(F)for everything, although man's trouble^[d] lies heavy on him. ⁷ For he ^(G)does not know what is to be, for ^(H)who can tell him how it will be? ⁸ No man has power to ^(I)retain the spirit, ^(J)or power over the day of death. There is no ^(K)discharge from war, nor will wickedness deliver those who are given to it. ^9 (L)All this I observed while applying my heart to all that is done under the sun, when man had power over man to his hurt.

Those Who Fear God Will Do Well

¹⁰ Then I saw the wicked buried. They used to go in and out of ^(M)the holy place and were ^(N)praised^[e] in the city where they had done such things. This also is vanity.^{[f] 11} Because ^(O)the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, ^(P)the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. ¹² Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and ^(Q)prolongs his life, yet I know that ^(R)it will be well with ^(S)those who fear God, because they fear before him. ¹³ But it will ^(T)not be well with the wicked, neither will he prolong his days like ^(U)a shadow, because he does not fear before God.

Man Cannot Know God's Ways

¹⁴ There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people ^(V)to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people ^(W)to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity. ¹⁵ And I commend joy, for man ^(X)has nothing better under the sun but to ^(Y)eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.

¹⁶ When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see ^(Z)the business that is done on earth, how neither ^(AA)day nor night do one's eyes see sleep, ¹⁷ then I saw all the work of God, that ^(AB)man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, ^(AC)he cannot find it out.

Preach the Word

4 ^(A)I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, ^(B)who is to judge the living and the dead, and by ^(C)his appearing and his kingdom: ² preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; ^(D)reprove, rebuke, and ^(E)exhort, with complete patience and teaching. ^3 (F)For the time is coming when people will not endure ^(G)sound^[a] teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, ⁴ and ^(H)will turn away from listening to the truth and ^(I)wander off into myths. ⁵ As for you, ^(J)always be sober-minded, ^(K)endure suffering, do the work of ^(L)an evangelist, ^(M)fulfill your ministry.

⁶ For ^(N)I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my ^(O)departure has come. ^7 (P)I have fought the good fight, ^(Q)I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. ⁸ Henceforth there is ^(R)laid up for me ^(S)the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, ^(T)the righteous judge, will award to me on ^(U)that day, and not only to me but also to all ^(V)who have loved his appearing.

Personal Instructions

^9 (W)Do your best to come to me soon. ¹⁰ For ^(X)Demas, ^(Y)in love with ^(Z)this present world, ^(AA)has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia,^{[b] (AB)}Titus to Dalmatia. ^11 (AC)Luke alone is with me. Get ^(AD)Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. ^12 (AE)Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus. ¹³ When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments. ^14 (AF)Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; ^(AG)the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. ¹⁵ Beware of him yourself, for he strongly opposed our message. ¹⁶ At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. ^(AH)May it not be charged against them! ¹⁷ But ^(AI)the Lord stood by me and ^(AJ)strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and ^(AK)all the Gentiles might hear it. So ^(AL)I was rescued ^(AM)from the lion's mouth. ¹⁸ The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. ^(AN)To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Final Greetings

¹⁹ Greet ^(AO)Prisca and Aquila, and ^(AP)the household of Onesiphorus. ²⁰ Erastus remained at Corinth, and I left ^(AQ)Trophimus, who was ill, at Miletus. ^21 (AR)Do your best to come before winter. Eubulus sends greetings to you, as do Pudens and Linus and Claudia and all the brothers.^[c]

²² The Lord be ^(AS)with your spirit. ^(AT)Grace be with you.^[d]