One Year Bible.

The Seventh Year

¹Then the LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai, ²“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land itself must observe a Sabbath to the LORD.

³For six years you may sow your field and prune your vineyard and gather its crops. ⁴But in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of complete rest for the land — a Sabbath to the LORD.

You are not to sow your field or prune your vineyard. ⁵You are not to reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your untended vines. The land must have a year of complete rest. ⁶Whatever the land yields during the Sabbath year shall be food for you— for yourself, your manservant and maidservant, the hired hand or foreigner who stays with you, ⁷and for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. All its growth may serve as food.

The Year of Jubilee

⁸And you shall count off seven Sabbaths of years — seven times seven years — so that the seven Sabbaths of years amount to forty-nine years. ⁹Then you are to sound the horn far and wide on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement. You shall sound it throughout your land.

¹⁰So you are to consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be your Jubilee, when each of you is to return to his property and to his clan.

¹¹The fiftieth year will be a Jubilee for you; you are not to sow the land or reap its aftergrowth or harvest the untended vines. ¹²For it is a Jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You may eat only the crops taken directly from the field.

Return of Property

¹³In this Year of Jubilee, each of you shall return to his own property.

¹⁴If you make a sale to your neighbor or a purchase from him, you must not take advantage of each other. ¹⁵You are to buy from your neighbor according to the number of years since the last Jubilee; he is to sell to you according to the number of harvest years remaining. ¹⁶You shall increase the price in proportion to a greater number of years, or decrease it in proportion to a lesser number of years; for he is selling you a given number of harvests.

¹⁷Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God; for I am the LORD your God.

The Blessing of Obedience

¹⁸You are to keep My statutes and carefully observe My judgments, so that you may dwell securely in the land. ¹⁹Then the land will yield its fruit, so that you can eat your fill and dwell in safety in the land.

²⁰Now you may wonder, ‘What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not sow or gather our produce?’ ²¹But I will send My blessing upon you in the sixth year, so that the land will yield a crop sufficient for three years. ²²While you are sowing in the eighth year, you will be eating from the previous harvest, until the ninth year’s harvest comes in.

The Law of Redemption

²³The land must not be sold permanently, because it is Mine, and you are but foreigners and residents with Me. ²⁴Thus for every piece of property you possess, you must provide for the redemption of the land.

²⁵If your brother becomes impoverished and sells some of his property, his nearest of kin may come and redeem what his brother has sold. ²⁶Or if a man has no one to redeem it for him, but he prospers and acquires enough to redeem his land, ²⁷he shall calculate the years since its sale, repay the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and return to his property. ²⁸But if he cannot obtain enough to repay him, what he sold will remain in possession of the buyer until the Year of Jubilee. In the Jubilee, however, it is to be released, so that he may return to his property.

²⁹If a man sells a house in a walled city, he retains his right of redemption until a full year after its sale; during that year it may be redeemed. ³⁰If it is not redeemed by the end of a full year, then the house in the walled city is permanently transferred to its buyer and his descendants. It is not to be released in the Jubilee. ³¹But houses in villages with no walls around them are to be considered as open fields. They may be redeemed, and they shall be released in the Jubilee.

³²As for the cities of the Levites, the Levites always have the right to redeem their houses in the cities they possess. ³³So whatever belongs to the Levites may be redeemed— a house sold in a city they possess— and must be released in the Jubilee, because the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the Israelites. ³⁴But the open pastureland around their cities may not be sold, for this is their permanent possession.

Redemption of the Poor

³⁵Now if your countryman becomes destitute and cannot support himself among you, then you are to help him as you would a foreigner or stranger, so that he can continue to live among you. ³⁶Do not take any interest or profit from him, but fear your God, that your countryman may live among you. ³⁷You must not lend him your silver at interest or sell him your food for profit. ³⁸I 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.

Redemption of Bondmen

³⁹If a countryman among you becomes destitute and sells himself to you, then you must not force him into slave labor. ⁴⁰Let him stay with you as a hired worker or temporary resident; he is to work for you until the Year of Jubilee. ⁴¹Then he and his children are to be released, and he may return to his clan and to the property of his fathers.

⁴²Because the Israelites are My servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt, they are not to be sold as slaves. ⁴³You are not to rule over them harshly, but you shall fear your God.

⁴⁴Your menservants and maidservants shall come from the nations around you, from whom you may purchase them. ⁴⁵You may also purchase them from the foreigners residing among you or their clans living among you who are born in your land. These may become your property. ⁴⁶You may leave them to your sons after you to inherit as property; you can make them slaves for life. But as for your brothers, the Israelites, no man may rule harshly over his brother.

Redemption of Servants

⁴⁷If a foreigner residing among you prospers, but your countryman dwelling near him becomes destitute and sells himself to the foreigner or to a member of his clan, ⁴⁸he retains the right of redemption after he has sold himself. One of his brothers may redeem him: ⁴⁹either his uncle or cousin or any close relative from his clan may redeem him. Or if he prospers, he may redeem himself.

⁵⁰He and his purchaser will then count the time from the year he sold himself up to the Year of Jubilee. The price of his sale will be determined by the number of years, based on the daily wages of a hired hand. ⁵¹If many years remain, he must pay for his redemption in proportion to his purchase price. ⁵²If only a few years remain until the Year of Jubilee, he is to calculate and pay his redemption according to his remaining years. ⁵³He shall be treated like a man hired from year to year, but a foreign owner must not rule over him harshly in your sight.

⁵⁴Even if he is not redeemed in any of these ways, he and his children shall be released in the Year of Jubilee. ⁵⁵For the Israelites are My servants. They are My servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.[’’]

Paul’s Defense to the Crowd

¹“Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense before you.” ²When they heard him speak to them in Hebrew, they became even more quiet.

Then Paul declared, ³“I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but raised in this city. I was educated at the feet of Gamaliel in strict conformity to the law of our fathers. I was just as zealous for God as any of you are today.

⁴I persecuted this Way even to the death, detaining both men and women and throwing them into prison, ⁵as the high priest and the whole Council can testify about me. I even obtained letters from them to their brothers in Damascus, and I was on my way to apprehend these people and bring them to Jerusalem to be punished.

⁶About noon as I was approaching Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. ⁷I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?’

⁸‘Who are You, Lord?’ I asked.

‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,’ He replied. ⁹My companions saw the light, but they could not understand the voice of the One speaking to me.

¹⁰Then I asked, ‘What should I do, Lord?’

‘Get up and go into Damascus,’ He told me. ‘There you will be told all that you have been appointed to do.’

¹¹Because the brilliance of the light had blinded me, my companions led me by the hand into Damascus. ¹²There a man named Ananias, a devout observer of the law who was highly regarded by all the Jews living there, ¹³came and stood beside me. ‘Brother Saul,’ he said, ‘receive your sight.’ And at that moment I could see him.

¹⁴Then he said, ‘The God of our fathers has appointed you to know His will and to see the Righteous One and to hear His voice. ¹⁵You will be His witness to everyone of what you have seen and heard. ¹⁶And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized, and wash your sins away, calling on His name.’

¹⁷Later, when I had returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance ¹⁸and saw the Lord saying to me, ‘Hurry! Leave Jerusalem quickly, because the people here will not accept your testimony about Me.’

¹⁹‘Lord,’ I answered, ‘they know very well that in one synagogue after another I imprisoned and beat those who believed in You. ²⁰And when the blood of Your witness Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and watching over the garments of those who killed him.’

²¹Then He said to me, ‘Go! I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’”

Paul the Roman Citizen

²²The crowd listened to Paul until he made this statement. Then they lifted up their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He is not fit to live!”

²³As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and tossing dust into the air, ²⁴the commander ordered that Paul be brought into the barracks. He directed that Paul be flogged and interrogated to determine the reason for this outcry against him.

²⁵But as they stretched him out to strap him down, Paul said to the centurion standing there, “Is it lawful for you to flog a Roman citizen without a trial?”

²⁶On hearing this, the centurion went and reported it to the commander. “What are you going to do?” he said. “This man is a Roman citizen.”

²⁷The commander went to Paul and asked, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?”

“Yes,” he answered.

²⁸“I paid a high price for my citizenship,” said the commander.

“But I was born a citizen,” Paul replied.

²⁹At once those who were about to interrogate Paul stepped back, and the commander himself was alarmed when he realized that he had put a Roman citizen in chains.

³⁰The next day the commander, wanting to learn the real reason Paul was accused by the Jews, released him and ordered the chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin to assemble. Then he brought Paul down and had him stand before them.

Hananiah’s False Prophecy

¹In the fifth month of that same year, the fourth year, near the beginning of the reign of King Zedekiah of Judah, the prophet Hananiah son of Azzur, who was from Gibeon, said to me in the house of the LORD in the presence of the priests and all the people: ²“This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. ³Within two years I will restore to this place all the articles of the house of the LORD that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon removed from here and carried to Babylon. ⁴And I will restore to this place Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, along with all the exiles from Judah who went to Babylon,’ declares the LORD, ‘for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.’”

⁵Then the prophet Jeremiah replied to the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests and all the people who were standing in the house of the LORD. ⁶“Amen!” Jeremiah said. “May the LORD do so! May the LORD fulfill the words you have prophesied, and may He restore the articles of His house and all the exiles back to this place from Babylon.

⁷Nevertheless, listen now to this message I am speaking in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people. ⁸The prophets of old who preceded you and me prophesied war, disaster, and plague against many lands and great kingdoms. ⁹As for the prophet who prophesies peace, only if the word of the prophet comes true will the prophet be recognized as one the LORD has truly sent.”

¹⁰Then the prophet Hananiah took the yoke off the neck of Jeremiah the prophet and broke it. ¹¹And in the presence of all the people Hananiah proclaimed, “This is what the LORD says: ‘In this way, within two years I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon off the neck of all the nations.’”

At this, Jeremiah the prophet went on his way. ¹²But shortly after Hananiah the prophet had broken the yoke off his neck, the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: ¹³“Go and tell Hananiah that this is what the LORD says: ‘You have broken a yoke of wood, but in its place you have fashioned a yoke of iron.’

¹⁴For this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations to make them serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and they will serve him. I have even given him control of the beasts of the field.’”

¹⁵Then the prophet Jeremiah said to the prophet Hananiah, “Listen, Hananiah! The LORD did not send you, but you have persuaded this people to trust in a lie. ¹⁶Therefore this is what the LORD says: ‘I am about to remove you from the face of the earth. You will die this year because you have preached rebellion against the LORD.’”

¹⁷And in the seventh month of that very year, the prophet Hananiah died.

Jeremiah’s Letter to the Exiles

¹This is the text of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets, and all the others Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. ²(This was after King Jeconiah, the queen mother, the court officials, the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the metalsmiths had been exiled from Jerusalem.) ³The letter was entrusted to Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. It stated:

⁴This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says to all the exiles who were carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon: ⁵“Build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat their produce. ⁶Take wives and have sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Multiply there; do not decrease. ⁷Seek the prosperity of the city to which I have sent you as exiles. Pray to the LORD on its behalf, for if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

⁸For this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Do not be deceived by the prophets and diviners among you, and do not listen to the dreams you elicit from them. ⁹For they are falsely prophesying to you in My name; I have not sent them, declares the LORD.”

¹⁰For this is what the LORD says: “When Babylon’s seventy years are complete, I will attend to you and confirm My promise to restore you to this place. ¹¹For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope. ¹²Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. ¹³You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. ¹⁴I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore you from captivity and gather you from all the nations and places to which I have banished you, declares the LORD. I will restore you to the place from which I sent you into exile.”

¹⁵Because you may say, “The LORD has raised up for us prophets in Babylon,” ¹⁶this is what the LORD says about the king who sits on David’s throne and all the people who remain in this city, your brothers who did not go with you into exile— ¹⁷this is what the LORD of Hosts says:

“I will send against them sword and famine and plague, and I will make them like rotten figs, so bad they cannot be eaten. ¹⁸I will pursue them with sword and famine and plague. I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth— a curse, a desolation, and an object of scorn and reproach among all the nations to which I banish them. ¹⁹I will do this because they have not listened to My words, declares the LORD,which I sent to them again and again through My servants the prophets. And neither have you exiles listened, declares the LORD.”

²⁰So hear the word of the LORD, all you exiles I have sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon. ²¹This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says about Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying to you lies in My name: “I will deliver them to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will kill them before your very eyes. ²²Because of them, all the exiles of Judah who are in Babylon will use this curse: ‘May the LORD make you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire!’ ²³For they have committed an outrage in Israel by committing adultery with the wives of their neighbors and speaking lies in My name, which I did not command them to do. I am He who knows, and I am a witness, declares the LORD.”

The Message to Shemaiah

²⁴You are to tell Shemaiah the Nehelamite that ²⁵this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “In your own name you have sent out letters to all the people of Jerusalem, to the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah, and to all the priests. You said to Zephaniah:

²⁶‘The LORD has appointed you priest in place of Jehoiada, to be the chief officer in the house of the LORD, responsible for any madman who acts like a prophet — you must put him in stocks and neck irons. ²⁷So now, why have you not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth, who poses as a prophet among you? ²⁸For he has sent to us in Babylon, claiming: Since the exile will be lengthy, build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat their produce.’”

²⁹(Zephaniah the priest, however, had read this letter to Jeremiah the prophet.)

³⁰Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: ³¹“Send a message telling all the exiles what the LORD says concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite. Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you— though I did not send him— and has made you trust in a lie, ³²this is what the LORD says: ‘I will surely punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his descendants. He will have no one left among this people, nor will he see the good that I will bring to My people, declares the LORD, for he has preached rebellion against the LORD.’”