Hello, this is Father Paul and I'm glad we're taking this journey together to read the Bible
in a year.
Yesterday we heard about the feasts that the Israelites are called to keep and how they
are to keep them and the sacrifices that they are to make on those feasts.
And today we're going to hear about the seventh year or the year of the Sabbath as well as
the fiftieth year or the year of the Jubilee and how these years are to be kept and exactly
what the children of Israel are called to do on those years.
Alright let's begin.
To these reading is from Leviticus chapters 25 to 27.
Chapter 25
And the LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, and
say to them, When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a Sabbath
to the LORD.
Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather
its fruits.
But in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to
the LORD.
And you shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard.
What grows of its own accord of your harvest you shall not reap, nor gather the grapes
of your untended vine, for it is a year of rest for the land.
And the Sabbath produce of the land shall be food for you, for you your male and female
servants, your hired man, and a stranger who dwells with you, for your livestock and the
beasts there are in your land.
All its produce shall be for food.
And you shall count seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years.
And the time of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years.
Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month.
On the day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land.
And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land
to all its inhabitants.
It shall be a Jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his possession, and each
of you shall return to his family.
That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee to you.
In it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of its own accord, nor gather the grapes
of your untended vine.
For it is the Jubilee, it shall be holy to you, you shall eat its produce from the field.
In this year of Jubilee each of you shall return to his possession, and if you sell
anything to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor's hand, you shall not oppress one another.
According to the number of years after the Jubilee, you shall buy from your neighbor,
and according to the number of years of crops he shall sell to you.
According to the multitude of years you shall increase its price, and according to the fewer
number of years you shall diminish its price, for he sells to you according to the number
of the years of the crops.
Therefore, you shall not oppress one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the
LORD your God.
So you shall observe My statutes and keep My judgments and perform them, and you will
dwell in the land in safety.
Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell there in safety.
And if you say, What shall we eat in the seventh year, since we shall not sow nor gather in
our produce?
Then I will command My blessing on you in the sixth year, and it will bring forth produce
enough for three years.
And you shall sow in the eighth year, and eat all produce until the ninth year, until
its produce comes in, you shall eat of the old harvest.
The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine.
For you are strangers and sojourners with Me, and in all the land of your possession
you shall grant redemption of the land.
If one of your brethren becomes poor and has sold some of his possession, and if his redeeming
relative comes to redeem it, then he may redeem what his brother sold.
Or if a man has no one to redeem it, but he himself becomes able to redeem it, then let
him count the years since its sale, and restore the remainder to the man to whom he sold it,
that he may return to his possession.
But if he is not able to have it restored to himself, then what was sold shall remain
in the hand of him who bought it until the year of Jubilee, and in the Jubilee it shall
be released, and he shall return to his possession.
If a man sells a house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after
it is sold, within a full year he may redeem it, but if it is not redeemed within the space
of a full year, then the house in the walled city shall belong permanently to him who bought
it, throughout his generations, it shall not be released in the Jubilee.
However, the houses of villages which have no wall around them shall be counted as the
fields of the country, they may be redeemed, and they shall be released in the Jubilee.
Nevertheless, the cities of the Levites, and the houses in the cities of their possession,
the Levites may redeem at any time.
And if a man purchases a house from the Levites, then the house that was sold in the city of
his possession shall be released in the Jubilee, for the houses in the cities of the Levites
are their possession among the children of Israel.
But the field of the common land of their cities may not be sold, for it is their perpetual
possession.
If one of your brethren becomes poor and falls into poverty among you, then you shall help
him like a stranger or a sojourner that he may live with you.
Take no usury or interest from him, but fear your God that your brother may live with you.
You shall not lend him your money for usury, nor lend him your food at a profit.
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.
And if one of your brethren who dwells by you becomes poor and sells himself to you,
you shall not compel him to serve as a slave.
As a hired servant and a sojourner, he shall be with you, and shall serve you until the
year of Jubilee.
And then he shall depart from you, he and his children with him, and shall return to
his own family.
He shall return to the possession of his fathers.
For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt.
They shall not be sold as slaves.
You shall not rule over him with rigor, but you shall fear your God.
And as for your male and female slaves, whom you may have from the nations that are around
you, from them you may buy male and female slaves.
Moreover, you may buy the children of the strangers who dwell among you, and their families
who are with you, which they beget in your land, and they shall become your property.
And you may take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them as
a possession.
They shall be your permanent slaves.
But regarding your brethren, the children of Israel, you shall not rule over one another
with rigor.
Now if a sojourner or stranger close to you becomes rich, and one of your brethren who
dwells by him becomes poor, and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner close to you,
or to a member of the stranger's family, after he is sold he may be redeemed again.
One of his brothers may redeem him, or his uncle or his uncle's son may redeem him, or
anyone who is near of kin to him and his family may redeem him, or if he is able he may redeem
himself.
Thus he shall reckon with him who bought him.
The price of his release shall be according to the number of years, from the year that
he was sold to him until the year of Jubilee.
It shall be according to the time of a hired servant for him.
If there are still many years remaining, according to them he shall repay the price of his redemption
from the money with which he was bought.
And if there remain but a few years until the year of Jubilee, then he shall reckon
with him and according to his years he shall repay him the price of his redemption.
He shall be with him as a yearly hired servant, and he shall not rule with rigor over him
in your sight.
And if he is not redeemed in these years, then he shall be released in the year of Jubilee,
he and his children with him.
For the children of Israel are servants to me.
They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt.
I am the Lord your God.
Chapter 26 You shall not make idols for yourselves.
Neither a carved image, nor a sacred pillar, shall you rear up for yourselves, nor shall
you set up an engraved stone in your land to bow down to it.
For I am the Lord your God.
You shall keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary.
I am the Lord.
If you walk in my statutes and keep my commandments and perform them, then I will give you rain
in its season.
The land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.
Your threshing shall last till the time of vintage, and the vintage shall last till the
time of sowing.
You shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.
I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none will make you afraid.
I will rid the land of evil beasts, and the sword will not go through your land.
You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you.
Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight.
Your enemies shall fall by the sword before you.
For I will look on you favorably, and make you fruitful, multiply you, and confirm my
covenant with you.
You shall eat the old harvest, and clear out the old because of the new.
I will set my tabernacle among you, and my soul shall not abhor you.
I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be my people.
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not
be their slaves.
I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you walk upright.
But if you do not obey me, and do not observe all these commandments, and if you despise
my statutes, or if your soul abhors my judgments, so that you do not perform all my commandments,
but break my covenant, I will also do this to you.
I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever, which shall consume the
eyes and cause sorrow of heart.
And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.
I will set my face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies.
Those who hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you.
And after all this, if you do not obey me, then I will punish you seven times more for
your sins.
I will break the pride of your power.
I will make your heavens like iron, and your earth like bronze.
And your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its produce,
nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit.
Even if you walk contrary to me, and are not willing to obey me, I will bring on you seven
times more plagues according to your sins.
I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, destroy your
livestock and make you few in number, and your highways shall be desolate.
And if by these things you are not reformed by me, but walk contrary to me, then I will
also walk contrary to you, and I will punish you yet seven times for your sins.
And I will bring a sword against you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant.
When you are gathered together within your cities, I will send pestilence among you,
and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
When I have cut off your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven,
and they shall bring back your bread by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied.
And after all this, if you do not obey me, but walk contrary to me, then I also will
walk contrary to you in fury, and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your
sins.
You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.
I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and cast your carcasses
on the lifeless forms of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you.
I will lay your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not
smell the fragrance of your sweet aromas.
I will bring the land to desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished
at it.
I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you.
Your land shall be desolate and your cities waste.
Then the land shall enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your
enemy's land.
Then the land shall rest and enjoy its sabbaths.
As long as it lies desolate it shall rest.
For the time it did not rest on your sabbaths when you dwelt in it.
And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands
of their enemies.
The sound of a shaken leaf shall cause them to flee.
They shall flee as though fleeing from a sword, and they shall fall when no one pursues.
They shall stumble over one another, as it were before a sword, when no one pursues.
And you shall have no power to stand before your enemies.
You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.
And those of you who are left shall waste away in their iniquity in your enemy's lands.
Also in their father's iniquities, which are with them, they shall waste away.
But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their unfaithfulness,
in which they were unfaithful to me, and that they also have walked contrary to me, and
that I also have walked contrary to them, and have brought them into the land of their
enemies, if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they accept their guilt, then
I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and my covenant with Isaac, and my covenant with
Abraham, I will remember.
I will remember the land.
The land also shall be left empty by them, and will enjoy its sabbaths, while it lies
desolate without them.
They will accept their guilt, because they despise my judgments, and because their soul
abhors my statutes.
Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away,
nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break my covenant with them, for
I am the Lord their God.
But for their sake I will remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of
the land of Egypt, in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God.
I am the Lord.
These are the statutes and judgments, and laws which the Lord made between himself and
the children of Israel on Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.
Chapter 27
Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them,
When a man consecrates by a vow certain persons to the Lord according to your valuation, if
your valuation is of a male from twenty years old up to sixty years old, then your valuation
shall be fifty shekels of silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary.
If it is a female, then your valuation shall be thirty shekels.
And if from five years old up to twenty years old, then your valuation for a male shall
be twenty shekels, and for a female ten shekels.
And if from a month old up to five years old, then your valuation for a male shall be five
shekels of silver, and for a female your valuation shall be three shekels of silver.
And from sixty years old and above, if it is a male, then your valuation shall be fifteen
shekels, and for a female ten shekels.
But if he is too poor to pay your valuation, then he shall present himself before the priest,
and the priest shall set a value for him according to the ability of him who vowed, the priest
shall value him.
If it is an animal that men may bring as an offering to the Lord, all that anyone gives
to the Lord shall be holy.
He shall not substitute it or exchange it, good for bad or bad for good.
And if he at all exchanges animal for animal, then both it and the one exchanged for it
shall be holy.
If it is an unclean animal which they do not offer as a sacrifice to the Lord, then he
shall present the animal before the priest, and the priest shall set a value for it,
whether it is good or bad.
As you the priest value it, so it shall be.
But if he wants at all to redeem it, then he must add one fifth to your valuation.
And when a man dedicates his house to be holy to the Lord, then the priest shall set a value
for it, whether it is good or bad, as the priest values it, so it shall stand.
If he who dedicated it wants to redeem his house, then he must add one fifth of the money
of your valuation to it, and it shall be his.
If a man dedicates to the Lord part of a field of his possession, then your valuation shall
be according to the seed for it.
A homer of barley seed shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver.
If he dedicates his field from the year of Jubilee according to your valuation, it shall
stand.
But if he dedicates his field after the Jubilee, then the priest shall reckon to him the money
due according to the years that remain till the year of Jubilee, and it shall be deducted
from your valuation.
And if he who dedicates the field ever wishes to redeem it, then he must add one fifth of
the money of your valuation to it, and it shall belong to him.
But if he does not want to redeem the field, or if he has sold the field to another man,
it shall not be redeemed any more.
But the field, when it is released in the Jubilee, shall be holy to the Lord as a devoted
field.
It shall be the possession of the priest.
And if a man dedicates to the Lord a field which he has bought, which is not the field
of his possession, then the priest shall reckon to him the worth of your valuation up to the
year of Jubilee, and he shall give your valuation on that day as a holy offering to the Lord.
In the year of Jubilee the field shall return to him from whom it was bought, to the one
who owned the land as a possession.
And all your valuations shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary, twenty geras
to the shekel.
But the firstborn of the animals, which should be the Lord's firstborn, no man shall dedicate.
Whether it is an ox or sheep, it is the Lord's.
And if it is an unclean animal, then he shall redeem it according to your valuation, and
shall add one fifth to it.
Or if it is not redeemed, then it shall be sold according to your valuation.
Nevertheless, no devoted offering that a man may devote to the Lord of all that he has,
both man and beast, or the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed.
Every devoted offering is most holy to the Lord.
No person under the ban, who may become doomed to destruction among men, shall be redeemed,
which shall surely be put to death.
And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the
tree, is the Lord's.
It is holy to the Lord.
If a man wants at all to redeem any of his tithe, he shall add one fifth to it.
And concerning the tithe of the herd or the flock of whatever passes under the rod, the
tenth one shall be holy to the Lord.
He shall not inquire whether it is good or bad, nor shall exchange it.
And if he exchanges it at all, then both it and the one exchanged for it shall be holy.
It shall not be redeemed.
These are the commandments which the Lord commanded Moses for the children of Israel
on Mount Sinai.
And with that we have concluded the third book of the Old Testament, the Book of Leviticus.
And we're only getting started.
I'm very excited that we're on this journey together and I'm proud of you.
You're doing great.
I hope you enjoyed today's reading as much as I did, and I look forward to seeing you
again tomorrow to continue on our journey.
God bless you and have a great day.