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The LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai and commanded him
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to give the following regulations to the people of Israel. When you enter the land that the LORD is giving you, you shall honor the LORD by not cultivating the land every seventh year.
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You shall plant your fields, prune your vineyards, and gather your crops for six years.
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But the seventh year is to be a year of complete rest for the land, a year dedicated to the LORD. Do not plant your fields or prune your vineyards.
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Do not even harvest the grain that grows by itself without being planted, and do not gather the grapes from your unpruned vines; it is a year of complete rest for the land.
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Although the land has not been cultivated during that year, it will provide food for you, your slaves, your hired men, the foreigners living with you,
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your domestic animals, and the wild animals in your fields. Everything that it produces may be eaten.
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Count seven times seven years, a total of forty-nine years.
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Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement, send someone to blow a trumpet throughout the whole land.
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In this way you shall set the fiftieth year apart and proclaim freedom to all the inhabitants of the land. During this year all property that has been sold shall be restored to the original owner or the descendants, and any who have been sold as slaves shall return to their families.
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You shall not plant your fields or harvest the grain that grows by itself or gather the grapes in your unpruned vineyards.
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The whole year shall be sacred for you; you shall eat only what the fields produce of themselves.
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In this year all property that has been sold shall be restored to its original owner.
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So when you sell land to an Israelite or buy land, do not deal unfairly.
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The price is to be set according to the number of years the land can produce crops before the next Year of Restoration.
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If there are many years, the price shall be higher, but if there are only a few years, the price shall be lower, because what is being sold is the number of crops the land can produce.
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Do not cheat an Israelite, but obey the LORD your God.
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Obey all the LORD's laws and commands, so that you may live in safety in the land.
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The land will produce its crops, and you will have all you want to eat and will live in safety.
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But someone may ask what there will be to eat during the seventh year, when no fields are planted and no crops gathered.
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The LORD will bless the land in the sixth year so that it will produce enough food for two years.
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When you plant your fields in the eighth year, you will still be eating what you harvested during the sixth year, and you will have enough to eat until the crops you plant that year are harvested.
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Your land must not be sold on a permanent basis, because you do not own it; it belongs to God, and you are like foreigners who are allowed to make use of it.
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When land is sold, the right of the original owner to buy it back must be recognized.
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If any of you Israelites become poor and are forced to sell your land, your closest relative is to buy it back.
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If you have no relative to buy it back, you may later become prosperous and have enough to buy it back yourself.
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In that case you must pay to the one who bought it a sum that will make up for the years remaining until the next Year of Restoration, when you would in any event recover your land.
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But if you do not have enough money to buy the land back, it remains under the control of the one who bought it until the next Year of Restoration. In that year it will be returned to its original owner.
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If you sell a house in a walled city, you have the right to buy it back during the first full year from the date of sale.
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But if you do not buy it back within the year, you lose the right of repurchase, and the house becomes the permanent property of the purchasers and their descendants; it will not be returned in the Year of Restoration.
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But houses in unwalled villages are to be treated like fields; the original owner has the right to buy them back, and they are to be returned in the Year of Restoration.
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However, Levites have the right to buy back at any time their property in the cities assigned to them.
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If a house in one of these cities is sold by a Levite and is not bought back, it must be returned in the Year of Restoration, because the houses which the Levites own in their cities are their permanent property among the people of Israel.
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But the pasture land around the Levite cities shall never be sold; it is their property forever.
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If any Israelites living near you become poor and cannot support themselves, you must provide for them as you would for a hired worker, so that they can continue to live near you.
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Do not charge Israelites any interest, but obey God and let them live near you.
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Do not make them pay interest on the money you lend them, and do not make a profit on the food you sell them.
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This is the command of the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt in order to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.
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If any Israelites living near you become so poor that they sell themselves to you as a slave, you shall not make them do the work of a slave.
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They shall stay with you as hired workers and serve you until the next Year of Restoration.
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At that time they and their children shall leave you and return to their family and to the property of their ancestors.
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The people of Israel are the LORD's slaves, and he brought them out of Egypt; they must not be sold into slavery.
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Do not treat them harshly, but obey your God.
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If you need slaves, you may buy them from the nations around you.
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You may also buy the children of the foreigners who are living among you. Such children born in your land may become your property,
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and you may leave them as an inheritance to your children, whom they must serve as long as they live. But you must not treat any Israelites harshly.
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Suppose a foreigner living with you becomes rich, while some Israelites become poor and sell themselves as slaves to that foreigner or to a member of that foreigner's family.
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After they are sold, they still have the right to be bought back. A brother
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or an uncle or a cousin or another close relative may buy them back; or if they themselves earn enough, they may buy their own freedom.
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They must consult the one who bought them, and they must count the years from the time they sold themselves until the next Year of Restoration and must set the price for their release on the basis of the wages paid hired workers.
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They must refund a part of the purchase price according to the number of years left,
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as if they had been hired on an annual basis. Their master must not treat them harshly.
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If they are not set free in any of these ways, they and their children must be set free in the next Year of Restoration.
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Israelites cannot be permanent slaves, because the people of Israel are the LORD's slaves. He brought them out of Egypt; he is the LORD their God.
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The LORD said, "Do not make idols or set up statues, stone pillars, or carved stones to worship. I am the LORD your God.
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Keep the religious festivals and honor the place where I am worshiped. I am the LORD.
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"If you live according to my laws and obey my commands,
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I will send you rain at the right time, so that the land will produce crops and the trees will bear fruit.
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Your crops will be so plentiful that you will still be harvesting grain when it is time to pick grapes, and you will still be picking grapes when it is time to plant grain. You will have all that you want to eat, and you can live in safety in your land.
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"I will give you peace in your land, and you can sleep without being afraid of anyone. I will get rid of the dangerous animals in the land, and there will be no more war there.
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You will be victorious over your enemies;
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five of you will be able to defeat a hundred, and a hundred will be able to defeat ten thousand.
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I will bless you and give you many children; I will keep my part of the covenant that I made with you.
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Your harvests will be so plentiful that they will last for a year, and even then you will have to throw away what is left of the old harvest to make room for the new.
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I will live among you in my sacred Tent, and I will never turn away from you.
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I will be with you; I will be your God, and you will be my people.
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I, the LORD your God, brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves. I broke the power that held you down and I let you walk with your head held high."
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The LORD said, "If you will not obey my commands, you will be punished.
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If you refuse to obey my laws and commands and break the covenant I have made with you,
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I will punish you. I will bring disaster on you---incurable diseases and fevers that will make you blind and cause your life to waste away. You will plant your crops, but it will do you no good, because your enemies will conquer you and eat what you have grown.
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I will turn against you, so that you will be defeated, and those who hate you will rule over you; you will be so terrified that you will run when no one is chasing you.
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"If even after all of this you still do not obey me, I will increase your punishment seven times.
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I will break your stubborn pride; there will be no rain, and your land will be dry and as hard as iron.
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All your hard work will do you no good, because your land will not produce crops and the trees will not bear fruit.
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"If you still continue to resist me and refuse to obey me, I will again increase your punishment seven times.
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I will send dangerous animals among you, and they will kill your children, destroy your livestock, and leave so few of you that your roads will be deserted.
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"If after all of this punishment you still do not listen to me, but continue to defy me,
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then I will turn on you and punish you seven times harder than before.
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I will bring war on you to punish you for breaking our covenant, and if you gather in your cities for safety, I will send incurable diseases among you, and you will be forced to surrender to your enemies.
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I will cut off your food supply, so that ten women will need only one oven to bake all the bread they have. They will ration it out, and when you have eaten it all, you will still be hungry.
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"If after all of this you still continue to defy me and refuse to obey me,
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then in my anger I will turn on you and again make your punishment seven times worse than before.
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Your hunger will be so great that you will eat your own children.
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I will destroy your places of worship on the hills, tear down your incense altars, and throw your dead bodies on your fallen idols. In utter disgust
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I will turn your cities into ruins, destroy your places of worship, and refuse to accept your sacrifices.
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I will destroy your land so completely that the enemies who occupy it will be shocked at the destruction.
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I will bring war on you and scatter you in foreign lands. Your land will be deserted, and your cities left in ruins.
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Then the land will enjoy the years of complete rest that you would not give it; it will lie abandoned and get its rest while you are in exile in the land of your enemies.
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"I will make those of you who are in exile so terrified that the sound of a leaf blowing in the wind will make you run. You will run as if you were being pursued in battle, and you will fall when there is no enemy near you.
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You will stumble over one another when no one is chasing you, and you will be unable to fight against any enemy.
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You will die in exile, swallowed up by the land of your enemies.
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The few of you who survive in the land of your enemies will waste away because of your own sin and the sin of your ancestors.
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"But your descendants will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors, who resisted me and rebelled against me,
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and caused me to turn against them and send them into exile in the land of their enemies. At last, when your descendants are humbled and they have paid the penalty for their sin and rebellion,
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I will remember my covenant with Jacob and with Isaac and with Abraham, and I will renew my promise to give my people the land.
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First, however, the land must be rid of its people, so that it can enjoy its complete rest, and they must pay the full penalty for having rejected my laws and my commands.
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But even then, when they are still in the land of their enemies, I will not completely abandon them or destroy them. That would put an end to my covenant with them, and I am the LORD their God.
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I will renew the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I showed all the nations my power by bringing my people out of Egypt, in order that I, the LORD, might be their God."
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All these are the laws and commands that the LORD gave to Moses on Mount Sinai for the people of Israel.
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the following regulations for the people of Israel. When any of you have been given to the LORD in fulfillment of a special vow, you may be set free by the payment of the following sums of money,
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according to the official standard: --adult male, twenty to sixty years old: 50 pieces of silver --adult female: 30 pieces of silver --young male, five to twenty years old: 20 pieces of silver --young female: 10 pieces of silver --infant male under five: 5 pieces of silver --infant female: 3 pieces of silver --male above sixty years of age: 15 pieces of silver --female above sixty: 10 pieces of silver
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If any of you make a vow and are too poor to pay the standard price, you shall bring the person to the priest, and the priest will set a lower price, according to your ability to pay.
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If your vow concerns an animal that is acceptable as an offering to the LORD, then every gift made to the LORD is sacred,
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and you may not substitute another animal for it. If you do, both animals belong to the LORD.
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But if your vow concerns a ritually unclean animal, which is not acceptable as an offering to the LORD, you shall take the animal to the priest.
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The priest shall set a price for it, according to its good or bad qualities, and the price will be final.
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If you wish to buy it back, you must pay the price plus an additional 20 percent.
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When any of you dedicate your house to the LORD, the priest shall set the price according to its good or bad points, and the price will be final.
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If you wish to buy your house back, you must pay the price plus an additional 20 percent.
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If any of you dedicate part of your land to the LORD, the price shall be set according to the amount of seed it takes to sow it, at the rate of ten pieces of silver per bushel of barley.
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If you dedicate the land immediately after a Year of Restoration, the full price applies.
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If you dedicate it any time later, the priest shall estimate the cash value according to the number of years left until the next Year of Restoration, and set a reduced price.
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If you wish to buy your field back, you must pay the price plus an additional 20 percent.
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If you sell the field to someone else without first buying it back from the LORD, you lose the right to buy it back.
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At the next Year of Restoration the field will become the LORD's permanent property; it shall belong to the priests.
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If you dedicate to the LORD a field that you have bought,
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the priest shall estimate its value according to the number of years until the next Year of Restoration, and you must pay the price that very day; the money belongs to the LORD.
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At the Year of Restoration the field shall be returned to the original owner or to the descendants.
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All prices shall be set according to the official standard.
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The first-born of an animal already belongs to the LORD, so no one may dedicate it to him as a freewill offering. A calf, a lamb, or a kid belongs to the LORD,
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but the first-born of an unclean animal may be bought back at the standard price plus an additional 20 percent. If it is not bought back, it may be sold to someone else at the standard price.
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None of you may sell or buy back what you have unconditionally dedicated to the LORD, whether it is a human being, an animal, or land. It belongs permanently to the LORD.
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Not even human beings who have been unconditionally dedicated may be bought back; they must be put to death.
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One tenth of all the produce of the land, whether grain or fruit, belongs to the LORD.
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If you wish to buy any of it back, you must pay the standard price plus an additional 20 percent.
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One of every ten domestic animals belongs to the LORD. When the animals are counted, every tenth one belongs to the LORD.
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You may not arrange the animals so that the poor animals are chosen, and you may not make any substitutions. If you do substitute one animal for another, then both animals will belong to the LORD and may not be bought back.
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These are the commands that the LORD gave Moses on Mount Sinai for the people of Israel.
