The Sabbath Year

1 ^wThe Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into ^xthe 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 ^yYou 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 land¹ shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves² 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: ^zall its yield shall be for food.

The Year of Jubilee

8 “You shall count seven weeks³ 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 ^athe loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. ^bOn the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. 10 And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and ^cproclaim 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 ^dyou shall return to his clan. 11 That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it ^eyou shall neither sow nor reap ^ywhat grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. 12 For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. ^fYou may eat the produce of the field.⁴

13 ^d“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, ^gyou shall not wrong one another. 15 ^hYou 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 ⁱYou shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God.

18 ^j“Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then ^kyou will dwell in the land securely. 19 ^lThe land will yield its fruit, and ^myou will eat your fill ^kand dwell in it securely. 20 And if you say, ⁿ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if ^owe may not sow or gather in our crop?’ 21 I will ^pcommand my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. 22 ^qWhen you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of ^rthe 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 ^sthe 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, ^tthen 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 ^uhim 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 ^vbe released, and ^whe 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; ^vit 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 ^vthey shall be released in the jubilee. 32 As for ^xthe 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 ^yof 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, ^zyou shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. 36 ^aTake no interest from him or profit, but ^bfear your God, that your brother may live beside you. 37 ^aYou shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. 38 ^cI 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 ^d“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 ^vThen he shall go out from you, ^ehe and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return ^fto the possession of his fathers. 42 For they are ^gmy servants,⁵ whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. 43 ^hYou shall not rule over him ⁱruthlessly but ^jshall 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 ^kYou 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 ^lyou shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.

Redeeming a Poor Man

47 “If a stranger or sojourner with you becomes rich, and ^myour 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 ⁿredeem him, or a close relative from his clan may redeem him. Or if he ^ogrows 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 ^prated 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. ^lHe shall not rule ruthlessly over him in your sight. 54 And if he is not redeemed by these means, then ^qhe and his children with him shall be released in the year of jubilee. 55 For it is ^rto me that the people of Israel are servants.⁶ They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

To Your Name Give Glory

Solomon Turns from the Lord

1 Now ^wKing Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, 2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, ^x“You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. 3 He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. 4 For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and ^yhis heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, ^zas was the heart of David his father. 5 For Solomon went after ^aAshtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after ^bMilcom the abomination of the Ammonites. 6 So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done. 7 Then Solomon built a high place for ^cChemosh the abomination of Moab, and for ^dMolech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. 8 And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods.

The Lord Raises Adversaries

9 And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because ^ehis heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, ^fwho had appeared to him twice 10 and ^ghad commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the Lord commanded. 11 Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, ^hI will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant. 12 Yet for the sake of David your father I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son. 13 However, ⁱI will not tear away all the kingdom, but ^jI will give one tribe to your son, for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem ^kthat I have chosen.”

14 And the Lord raised up an adversary against Solomon, Hadad the Edomite. He was of the royal house in Edom. 15 For ^lwhen David was in Edom, and Joab the commander of the army went up to bury the slain, he struck down every male in Edom 16 (for Joab and all Israel remained there six months, until he had cut off every male in Edom). 17 But Hadad fled to Egypt, together with certain Edomites of his father’s servants, Hadad still being a little child. 18 They set out from Midian and came to ^mParan and took men with them from Paran and came to Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, who gave him a house and assigned him an allowance of food and gave him land. 19 And Hadad found great favor in the sight of Pharaoh, so that he gave him in marriage the sister of his own wife, the sister of Tahpenes the queen. 20 And the sister of Tahpenes bore him Genubath his son, whom Tahpenes weaned in Pharaoh’s house. And Genubath was in Pharaoh’s house among the sons of Pharaoh. 21 But when Hadad heard in Egypt ⁿthat David slept with his fathers and that Joab the commander of the army was dead, Hadad said to Pharaoh, “Let me depart, that I may go to my own country.” 22 But Pharaoh said to him, “What have you lacked with me that you are now seeking to go to your own country?” And he said to him, “Only let me depart.”

23 God also raised up as an adversary to him, Rezon the son of Eliada, who had fled from his master ^oHadadezer king of Zobah. 24 And he gathered men about him and became leader of a marauding band, ^pafter the killing by David. And they went to Damascus and lived there and made him king in Damascus. 25 He was an adversary of Israel all the days of Solomon, doing harm as Hadad did. And he loathed Israel and reigned over Syria.

26 ^qJeroboam the son of Nebat, ^ran Ephraimite of Zeredah, a servant of Solomon, whose mother’s name was Zeruah, a widow, also ^slifted up his hand against the king. 27 And this was the reason why he lifted up his hand against the king. ^tSolomon built the Millo, and closed up the breach of the city of David his father. 28 The man Jeroboam was very able, and when Solomon saw that the young man was industrious he gave him charge over all the forced labor of the house of Joseph. 29 And at that time, when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, the prophet ^uAhijah the Shilonite found him on the road. Now Ahijah had dressed himself in a new garment, and the two of them were alone in the open country. 30 Then Ahijah laid hold of the new garment that was on him, ^vand tore it into twelve pieces. 31 And he said to Jeroboam, “Take for yourself ten pieces, for thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Behold, ^wI am about to tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon and will give you ten tribes 32 (but ^xhe shall have one tribe, for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, ^ythe city that I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel), 33 because they have¹ forsaken me ^zand worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of Moab, and Milcom the god of the Ammonites, and they have not walked in my ways, doing what is right in my sight and keeping my statutes and my rules, as David his father did. 34 Nevertheless, I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand, but I will make him ruler all the days of his life, for the sake of David my servant whom I chose, who kept my commandments and my statutes. 35 ^aBut I will take the kingdom out of his son’s hand and will give it to you, ten tribes. 36 Yet to his son ^xI will give one tribe, that David my servant may always have ^ba lamp before me in Jerusalem, ^ythe city where I have chosen to put my name. 37 And I will take you, and you shall reign over all that your soul desires, and you shall be king over Israel. 38 And if you will listen to all that I command you, and will walk in my ways, and do what is right in my eyes by keeping my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did, ^cI will be with you and ^dwill build you a sure house, as I built for David, and I will give Israel to you. 39 And I will afflict the offspring of David because of this, but not forever.’” 40 Solomon sought therefore to kill Jeroboam. But Jeroboam arose and fled into Egypt, to ^eShishak king of Egypt, and was in Egypt until the death of Solomon.

41 ^fNow the rest of the acts of Solomon, and all that he did, and his wisdom, are they not written in the Book of the Acts of Solomon? 42 And the time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years. 43 And Solomon ^gslept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David his father. And ^hRehoboam his son reigned in his place.

Judgment on Ammon

1 ^aConcerning the Ammonites.

Thus says the Lord:

6 “But ⁿafterward I will restore the fortunes of the Ammonites, declares the Lord.”

Judgment on Edom

7 Concerning ^oEdom.

Thus says the Lord of hosts:

12 For thus says the Lord: ^z“If those who did not deserve to drink the cup must drink it, ^awill you go unpunished? You shall not go unpunished, but you must drink. 13 ^bFor I have sworn by myself, declares the Lord, that ^cBozrah shall become ^da horror, a taunt, a waste, and a curse, and all her cities shall be perpetual wastes.”