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the end of every seven years you must grant a release of all debts. 2 This is how to cancel debt: every creditor shall cancel the loan he has made to his neighbour. He shall not require payment from his neighbour or brother, because the Lord’s release has been proclaimed. 3 You may require it of a foreigner; but you must release your claim against anything your brother owes you.
4 “There will be no poor among you, however, for the Lord will richly bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance, 5 If only you carefully obey the Lord your God, to diligently observe all these commandments that I am commanding you today. 6 For the Lord your God will bless you as He has promised you, and you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow; you will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you.
7 “If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you must not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your poor brother. 8 Instead, you must open your hand wide to him, and willingly lend him enough for whatever need he has. 9 Be careful that you do not allow this mean thought to arise in your heart, ‘The seventh year, the year of release is near’, and you view your poor brother with hostility, and you give him nothing. Your brother might cry out to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin. 10 You are to give freely to him, and do so without a grudging heart when you give, and for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your works, and in everything that you put your hand to. 11 For the poor will never cease to be in the land. Therefore I command you: ‘You must open your hand wide to your brother, to the needy and to the poor in your land’.
12 “If your fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, in the seventh year you must let him go free from you. 13 When you set him free, you must not send him away empty-handed. 14 You must provide liberally from your flock, your threshing floor, and your winepress. Give to him from all that the Lord your God has blessed you with. 15 Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you. That is why I am giving you this command today.
16 “But if your servant says to you, ‘I do not want to leave you’, because he loves you and your household, and he is well off with you, 17 then you are to take an awl and push it through his ear lobe and into the door, and he will become your servant for life. You are to do the same for a maidservant.
18 “Do not consider it as a hardship when you set him free, because he has given you six years of service, and he was worth twice the wages of a hired servant.
19 “You must consecrate all the firstborn males of your herds and flocks to the Lord your God. You are not to put the firstborn of your oxen to work or shear the firstborn of your flock. 20 Each year you and your family are to eat them in the presence of the Lord your God in the place that the Lord chooses. 21 But if it has any defect, if it is lame or blind or has any serious defect, you must not sacrifice it to the Lord your God. 22 You are to eat it within your towns; the unclean person and the clean person alike may eat it, as if it were a gazelle or a deer. 23 But you must not eat its blood; you are to pour it out on the ground like water.”