First Reading

The Lord said to Moses on Mount Sinai,

"Seven weeks of years shall you count–seven times seven years–

so that the seven cycles amount to forty-nine years.

Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month, let the trumpet resound;

on this, the Day of Atonement, the trumpet blast shall re-echo

throughout your land.

This fiftieth year you shall make sacred

by proclaiming liberty in the land for all its inhabitants.

It shall be a jubilee for you,

when every one of you shall return to his own property,

every one to his own family estate.

In this fiftieth year, your year of jubilee,

you shall not sow, nor shall you reap the aftergrowth

or pick the grapes from the untrimmed vines.

Since this is the jubilee, which shall be sacred for you,

you may not eat of its produce,

except as taken directly from the field.

"In this year of jubilee, then,

every one of you shall return to his own property.

Therefore, when you sell any land to your neighbor

or buy any from him, do not deal unfairly.

On the basis of the number of years since the last jubilee

shall you purchase the land from your neighbor;

and so also, on the basis of the number of years for crops,

shall he sell it to you.

When 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 crops that he sells you.

Do not deal unfairly, then; but stand in fear of your God.

I, the Lord, am your God."