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Leviticus 25

The Sabbatical Year.

1The LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai:

2^* Speak to the Israelites and tell them: When you enter the land that I am giving you, let the land, too, keep a sabbath for the LORD.

3For six years you may sow your field, and for six years prune your vineyard, gathering in their produce.^a

4But during the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath of complete rest, a sabbath for the LORD,^b when you may neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard.

5The aftergrowth of your harvest you shall not reap, nor shall you pick the grapes of your untrimmed vines. It shall be a year of rest for the land.

6While the land has its sabbath, all its produce will be food to eat for you yourself and for your male and female slave, for your laborer and the tenant who live with you,

7and likewise for your livestock and for the wild animals on your land.

The Jubilee Year.

8^* You shall count seven weeks of years—seven times seven years—such that the seven weeks of years amount to forty-nine years.

9Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month^* let the ram’s horn resound; on this, the Day of Atonement,^c the ram’s horn blast shall resound throughout your land.

10You shall treat this fiftieth year as sacred. You shall proclaim liberty in the land for all its inhabitants.^d It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to your own property, each of you to your own family.

11This fiftieth year is your year of jubilee; you shall not sow, nor shall you reap the aftergrowth or pick the untrimmed vines,

12since this is the jubilee. It shall be sacred for you. You may only eat what the field yields of itself.

13In this year of jubilee, then, each of you shall return to your own property.

14Therefore, when you sell any land to your neighbor or buy any from your neighbor, do not deal unfairly with one another.

15On the basis of the number of years since the last jubilee you shall purchase the land from your neighbor;^e and so also, on the basis of the number of years of harvest, that person shall sell it to you.

16When the years are many, the price shall be so much the more; when the years are few, the price shall be so much the less. For it is really the number of harvests that the person sells you.

17Do not deal unfairly with one another, then; but stand in fear of your God. I, the LORD, am your God.

18Observe my statutes and be careful to keep my ordinances, so that you will dwell securely in the land.

19The land will yield its fruit and you will eat your fill, and live there securely.^f

20And if you say, “What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we do not sow or reap our crop?”^g

21I will command such a blessing for you in the sixth year that there will be crop enough for three years,

22and when you sow in the eighth year, you will still be eating from the old crop; even into the ninth year, until the crop comes in, you will still be eating from the old crop.^h

Redemption of Property.^*

23The land shall not be sold irrevocably; for the land is mine, and you are but resident aliens and under my authority.

24Therefore, in every part of the country that you occupy, you must permit the land to be redeemed.

25When one of your kindred is reduced to poverty and has to sell some property, that person’s closest relative,^* who has the duty to redeem it, shall come and redeem what the relative has sold.ⁱ

26If, however, the person has no relative to redeem it, but later on acquires sufficient means to redeem it,

27the person shall calculate the years since the sale, return the balance to the one to whom it was sold, and thus regain the property.^j

28But if the person does not acquire sufficient means to buy back the land, what was sold shall remain in the possession of the purchaser until the year of the jubilee, when it must be released and returned to the original owner.^k

29^* When someone sells a dwelling in a walled town, it can be redeemed up to a full year after its sale—the redemption period is one year.

30But if such a house in a walled town has not been redeemed at the end of a full year, it shall belong irrevocably to the purchaser throughout the generations; it shall not be released in the jubilee.

31However, houses in villages that are not encircled by walls shall be reckoned as part of the surrounding farm land; they may be redeemed, and in the jubilee they must be released.

32^* In levitical cities^l the Levites shall always have the right to redeem the houses in the cities that are in their possession.

33As for levitical property that goes unredeemed—houses sold in cities of their possession shall be released in the jubilee; for the houses in levitical cities are their possession in the midst of the Israelites.

34Moreover, the pasture land^m belonging to their cities shall not be sold at all; it must always remain their possession.

35When one of your kindred is reduced to poverty and becomes indebted to you, you shall support that person like a resident alien; let your kindred live with you.

36Do not exact interest in advance or accrued interest,^* but out of fear of God let your kindred live with you.

37ⁿ Do not give your money at interest or your food at a profit.

38I, the LORD, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.

39^* When your kindred with you, having been so reduced to poverty, sell themselves to you, do not make them work as slaves.^o

40Rather, let them be like laborers or like your tenants, working with you until the jubilee year,

41when, together with any children, they shall be released from your service and return to their family and to their ancestral property.

42Since they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt, they shall not sell themselves as slaves are sold.

43Do not lord it over them harshly, but stand in fear of your God.

44^* The male and female slaves that you possess—these you shall acquire from the nations round about you.^p

45You may also acquire them from among the resident aliens who reside with you, and from their families who are with you, those whom they bore in your land. These you may possess,

46and bequeath to your children as their hereditary possession forever. You may treat them as slaves. But none of you shall lord it harshly over any of your fellow Israelites.^q

47When your kindred, having been so reduced to poverty, sell themselves to a resident alien who has become wealthy or to descendants of a resident alien’s family,

48even after having sold themselves, they still may be redeemed by one of their kindred,

49by an uncle or cousin, or by some other relative from their family; or, having acquired the means, they may pay the redemption price themselves.

50With the purchaser they shall compute the years from the sale to the jubilee, distributing the sale price over these years as though they had been hired as laborers.

51The more years there are, the more of the sale price they shall pay back as the redemption price;

52the fewer years there are before the jubilee year, the more they have as credit; in proportion to the years of service they shall pay the redemption price.

53The tenant alien shall treat those who sold themselves as laborers hired on an annual basis, and the alien shall not lord it over them harshly before your very eyes.

54And if they are not redeemed by these means, they shall nevertheless be released, together with any children, in the jubilee year.

55For the Israelites belong to me as servants; they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt, I, the LORD, your God.

Leviticus 26

The Reward of Obedience.

1^* Do not make idols for yourselves. You shall not erect a carved image or a sacred stone for yourselves, nor shall you set up a carved stone for worship in your land;^a for I, the LORD, am your God.

2Keep my sabbaths,^b and reverence my sanctuary. I am the LORD.

3^{* c} If you live in accordance with my statutes and are careful to observe my commandments,

4I will give you your rains in due season, so that the land will yield its crops, and the trees their fruit;^d

5your threshing will last till vintage time, and your vintage till the time for sowing, and you will eat your fill of food, and live securely in your land.^e

6I will establish peace in the land, and you will lie down to rest with no one to cause you anxiety. I will rid the country of ravenous beasts, and no sword shall sweep across your land.

7You will rout your enemies, and they shall fall before your sword.

8Five of you will put a hundred of your foes to flight, and a hundred of you will put to flight ten thousand, till your enemies fall before your sword.^f

9I will look with favor upon you, and make you fruitful and numerous,^g as I carry out my covenant with you.

10You shall eat the oldest stored harvest, and have to discard it to make room for the new.^h

11ⁱ I will set my tabernacle in your midst, and will not loathe you.

12Ever present in your midst, I will be your God, and you will be my people;

13I, the LORD, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be their slaves no more, breaking the bars of your yoke and making you walk erect.^j

The Punishment of Disobedience.^*

14^k But if you do not heed me and do not keep all these commandments,

15if you reject my statutes and loathe my decrees, refusing to obey all my commandments and breaking my covenant,

16then I, in turn, will do this to you: I will bring terror upon you—with consumption and fever to dim the eyes and sap the life. You will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will consume the crop.

17I will turn against you, and you will be beaten down before your enemies^l and your foes will lord it over you. You will flee though no one pursues you.

18If even after this you do not obey me, I will increase the chastisement for your sins sevenfold,^m

19to break your proud strength. I will make the sky above you as hard as iron, and your soil as hard as bronze,

20so that your strength will be spent in vain; your land will bear no crops, and its trees no fruit.

21If then you continue hostile, unwilling to obey me, I will multiply my blows sevenfold, as your sins deserve.

22I will unleash wild beasts against you, to rob you of your children and wipe out your livestock, till your population dwindles away and your roads become deserted.

23If, with all this, you still do not accept my discipline and continue hostile to me,

24ⁿ I, too, will continue to be hostile to you and I, for my part, will smite you for your sins sevenfold.

25I will bring against you the sword, the avenger of my covenant. Though you then huddle together in your cities, I will send pestilence among you, till you are delivered to the enemy.

26When I break your staff of bread, ten women will need but one oven for baking your bread, and they shall dole it out to you by weight;^o and though you eat, you shall not be satisfied.

27If, despite all this, you disobey and continue hostile to me,

28I will continue in my hostile rage toward you, and I myself will discipline you for your sins sevenfold,

29till you begin to eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters.^p

30I will demolish your high places, overthrow your incense stands, and cast your corpses upon the corpses of your idols.^q In my loathing of you,

31I will lay waste your cities and desolate your sanctuaries, refusing your sweet-smelling offerings.

32So devastated will I leave the land that your enemies who come to live there will stand aghast at the sight of it.^r

33And you I will scatter among the nations^s at the point of my drawn sword, leaving your countryside desolate and your cities deserted.

34Then shall the land, during the time it lies waste, make up its lost sabbaths, while you are in the land of your enemies; then shall the land have rest and make up for its sabbaths^t

35during all the time that it lies desolate, enjoying the rest that you would not let it have on your sabbaths when you lived there.

36Those of you who survive in the lands of their enemies, I will make so fainthearted that the sound of a driven leaf will pursue them, and they shall run as if from the sword, and fall though no one pursues them;

37stumbling over one another as if to escape a sword, while no one is after them—so helpless will you be to take a stand against your foes!

38You shall perish among the nations, swallowed up in your enemies’ country.

39Those of you who survive will waste away in the lands of their enemies, for their own and their ancestors’ guilt.^u

40^* They will confess^v their iniquity and the iniquity of their ancestors in their treachery against me and in their continued hostility toward me,

41so that I, too, had to be hostile to them and bring them into their enemies’ land. Then, when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they make amends for their iniquity,

42I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac; and also my covenant with Abraham I will remember.^w The land, too, I will remember.

43The land will be forsaken by them, that in its desolation without them, it may make up its sabbaths, and that they, too, may make good the debt of their guilt for having spurned my decrees and loathed my statutes.

44Yet even so, even while they are in their enemies’ land, I will not reject or loathe them to the point of wiping them out, thus making void my covenant with them; for I, the LORD, am their God.

45I will remember for them the covenant I made with their forebears, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations,^x that I might be their God. I am the LORD.

46These are the statutes, decrees and laws which the LORD established between himself and the Israelites through Moses on Mount Sinai.^y

Romans 9

Paul’s Love for Israel.^*

1I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie; my conscience joins with the holy Spirit in bearing me witness^a

2that I have great sorrow and constant anguish in my heart.

3For I could wish that I myself were accursed and separated from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kin according to the flesh.^b

4They are Israelites; theirs the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises;^c

5theirs the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, is the Messiah. God who is over all^* be blessed forever. Amen.^d

God’s Free Choice.

6But it is not that the word of God has failed. For not all who are of Israel are Israel,^e

7nor are they all children of Abraham because they are his descendants; but “It is through Isaac that descendants shall bear your name.”^f

8This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants.^g

9For this is the wording of the promise, “About this time I shall return and Sarah will have a son.”^h

10And not only that,ⁱ but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one husband, our father Isaac^*—

11before they had yet been born or had done anything, good or bad, in order that God’s elective plan might continue,

12not by works but by his call—she was told, “The older shall serve the younger.”^j

13As it is written:^k

“I loved Jacob

but hated Esau.”^*

14^* What then are we to say? Is there injustice on the part of God? Of course not!^l

15For he says to Moses:

“I will show mercy to whom I will,

I will take pity on whom I will.”^m

16So it depends not upon a person’s will or exertion, but upon God, who shows mercy.ⁿ

17For the scripture says to Pharaoh, “This is why I have raised you up, to show my power through you that my name may be proclaimed throughout the earth.”^o

18Consequently, he has mercy upon whom he wills,^p and he hardens whom he wills.^*

19^* You will say to me then, “Why (then) does he still find fault? For who can oppose his will?”^q

20But who indeed are you, a human being, to talk back to God?^r Will what is made say to its maker, “Why have you created me so?”

21Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for a noble purpose and another for an ignoble one?

22What if God, wishing to show his wrath and make known his power, has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath made for destruction?^s

23This was to make known the riches of his glory to the vessels of mercy, which he has prepared previously for glory,

24namely, us whom he has called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles.

Witness of the Prophets.

25As indeed he says in Hosea:

“Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’

and her who was not beloved^* I will call ‘beloved.’^t

26And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’

there they shall be called children of the living God.”^u

27^v And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “Though the number of the Israelites were like the sand of the sea, only a remnant will be saved;

28for decisively and quickly will the Lord execute sentence upon the earth.”

29And as Isaiah predicted:

“Unless the Lord of hosts had left us descendants,

we would have become like Sodom

and have been made like Gomorrah.”^w

Righteousness Based on Faith.^*

30What then shall we say? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have achieved it, that is, righteousness that comes from faith;^x

31but that Israel, who pursued the law of righteousness, did not attain to that law?^y

32Why not? Because they did it not by faith, but as if it could be done by works.^z They stumbled over the stone that causes stumbling,^*

33as it is written:

“Behold, I am laying a stone in Zion

that will make people stumble

and a rock that will make them fall,

and whoever believes in him shall not be put to shame.”^a

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The complete Book of Leviticus

The book of Romans