 1 At the end of every seven years you shall make a release. 2 This is the manner of the release. Every man who has a loan to his neighbor shall release it. He shall not exact it from his neighbor or from his brother because it is called the Lord's release. 3 You may exact it from a foreigner, but your hand shall release what is yours with your brother. 4 Except when there are be no poor among you. For the Lord will greatly bless you in the land that the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance to possess it. 5 But only if you carefully listen to the voice of the Lord your God to be careful to do all these commandments that I command you today. 6 For the Lord your God blesses you as He promised you. You will lend to many nations but you shall not borrow. You will reign over many nations but they will not reign over you. 7 If there is among you a poor man of one of your brothers inside any of your gates in your land that the Lord your God gives you, you must not harden your heart nor shut your hand from your poor brother. 8 But you shall open your hand wide to him and surely lend him enough for his need, what he lacks. 9 Beware that there is not a thought in your wicked heart saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand, and your eye may be evil against your poor brother, and you give him nothing. And he may cry to the Lord against you, and it is sin to you. 10 You shall surely give to him, and your heart will not be grieved when you give to him, because for this, the Lord your God will bless you in all your works and in all that you put your hand to. 11 For the poor will never cease out of the land. Therefore, I command you saying, You shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor, and to your needy, in your land. 12 If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. 13 When you send him out free from you, you shall not let him go away empty. 14 You shall richly bestow on him from your flock, and from your grain floor, and from your winepress. With what the Lord your God has blessed you, you shall give to him. 15 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you. Therefore I command you this today. 16 If he says to you, I will not go away from you, because he loves you and your house, because it has been good for him with you; 17 then you shall take an awl and put it through his ear to the door, and he shall be your servant forever. Also to your slave girl you shall do so. 18 It will not seem hard for you when you send him away from you free, for he has been worth a double hired servant in serving you six years. The Lord your God will bless you in all that you do. 19 All the firstborn males that come from your herd and from your flock, you shall set apart to the Lord your God. You shall do no work with the firstborn of your bull, nor shear the firstborn of your sheep. 20 You shall eat before the Lord your God year by year in the place that the Lord shall choose, you and your household. 21 If there is a blemish in it, lame, or blindness, or any ill blemish, you shall not sacrifice it to the Lord your God. 22 You shall eat it inside your gates. The unclean and the clean shall eat it alike, as the gazelle, and as the hart. 23 Only you shall not eat the blood of it. You shall pour it on the ground like water.
|