"Tell the Israelites: When you enter the land that I am giving to you, you must let the land have a special time of rest. This will be a special time of rest to honor the Lord.
But during the seventh year, you will let the land rest. This will be a special time of rest to honor the Lord. You must not plant seed in your field or trim your vineyards.
You must not cut the crops that grow by themselves after your harvest. You must not gather the grapes from your vines that are not trimmed. The land will have a year of rest.
"The land will have a year of rest, but you will still have enough food. There will be enough food for your men and women servants. There will be food for your hired workers and for the foreigners living in your country.
On the Day of Atonement, you must blow a ram's horn. That will be on the tenth day of the seventh month. You must blow the ram's horn through the whole country.
You will make the 50 year a special year. You will announce freedom for everyone living in your country. This time will be called 'Jubilee.' Each of you will go back to your own property. And each of you will go back to your own family.
The 50 year will be a special celebration for you. Don't plant seeds, or harvest the crops that grow by themselves, or gather grapes from the vines that are not trimmed.
If you want to buy your neighbor's land, count the number of years since the last Jubilee, and use that number to decide the right price. You are only buying the rights for harvesting crops {until the next Jubilee}.
If there are many years {before the next Jubilee}, the price will be high. If the years are few, the price will be lower. So your neighbor is really only selling a number of crops to you. {At the next Jubilee the land will again belong to that family.} 17You must not cheat each other. You must honor your God. I am the Lord your God.
When you plant in the eighth year, you will still be eating from the old crop. You will eat the old crop until the ninth year, when the crop {you planted in the eighth year} comes in.
Then the years must be counted since the land was sold. That number must be used to decide how much to pay for the land. The person must then buy back the land, and it will be their property again.
But if this first owner cannot find enough money to buy the land back, it will stay in the hands of the one who bought it until the year of Jubilee. Then during that special celebration, the land will go back {to the first owner's family}. So the property will again belong to the right family.
"Anyone who sells a home in a walled city still has the right to get it back until a full year after it was sold. Their right to get the house back will continue one year.
But if the owner does not buy back the house before a full year is finished, the house that is in the walled city will belong to the one who bought it and to their descendants. The house will not go back to the first owner at the time of Jubilee.
Towns without walls around them will be treated like open fields. So houses built in these small towns will go back to the first owners at the time of Jubilee.
If someone buys a house from a Levite, that house in the Levites' city will again belong to the Levites at the time of Jubilee. This is because houses in Levite cities belong to those from the tribe of Levi. The Israelites gave these cities to the Levites.
You may even pass these foreign slaves on to your children after you die so that they will belong to them. They will be your slaves forever. You may make slaves of these foreigners. But you must not be a cruel master over your own brothers, the Israelites.
"Maybe a foreigner or visitor among you becomes rich. Or maybe someone from your own country becomes so poor that they sell themselves as slaves to a foreigner living among you or to a member of a foreigner's family.
Or their uncle, their cousin, or one of their close relatives from their family can buy him back. Or if they get enough money, they can pay the money themselves and become free again.
"You must count the years from the time they sold themselves to the foreigner up to the next year of Jubilee. Use that number to decide the price, because really the person only 'hired' them for a few years.
If there are still many years before the year of Jubilee, the one sold must give back a large part of the price. It all depends on the numbers of years.