The year of forgiveness
1Every seven years you shall pardon debts. 2You shall do this in the following manner: the creditor shall pardon any debt of his neighbor or brother, and shall stop exacting it of him because Yahweh’s pardon has been proclaimed. 3You may demand that a foreigner pay back his debts but you shall pardon the debt of your brother. 4However you should have no poor in your midst for Yahweh will give you prosperity in the land that you have conquered. 5If you listen to the voice of Yahweh, your God, and obey all that he has commanded you, which I now remind you of, he will bless you as he promised. 6You shall lend to many nations but you shall not borrow; you shall drive away many nations and they shall not have dominion over you.
The poor and enslaved
7 ① If there is anybody poor among your brothers, who lives in your cities in the land that Yahweh gives you, do not harden your heart or close your hand, 8but be open-handed and lend him all that he needs.
9Be careful that you do not harbor in your heart these perverse thoughts: “The seventh year, the year of pardon, is near,” so you look coldly at your poor brother and lend him nothing. He may cry to Yahweh against you, and you will be guilty. 10When you give anything, give it willingly, and Yahweh, your God, will bless you for this in all your work and in all that you undertake.
11The poor will not disappear from this land. Therefore I give you this commandment: you must be open-handed to your brother, to the needy and to the poor in your land.
12If your fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, sells himself to you as a slave, he shall serve you for six years, and in the seventh, you shall set him free. 13When you set him free, do not let him go empty-handed, 14but give him something from your flock, from your store of wheat and wine, something from the good things that Yahweh has blessed you with.
15Remember that you too were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh, your God, has given you freedom. Because of this, I give you this commandment.
16But if your slave says: “I do not want to leave,” because he loves you and your household and knows that he will be well off with you, 17you shall then take an awl and thrust it through his ear into the door of your house, and he will serve you forever. You shall do likewise with your maidservant.
18Do not think it hard on you to give him freedom, because for six years you have gained from him twice as much as from a hired servant.
19You shall consecrate to Yahweh all the male firstlings that are born of your cattle or sheep. You shall not use the firstling of your cattle for work, nor shear the firstling of your sheep.
20You shall eat these every three years in the presence of Yahweh with all your family in the place Yahweh has chosen. 21You shall not sacrifice an animal to Yahweh if it has any defect, if it is lame or blind, 22but shall eat it in your house; the clean as well as the unclean may eat of it, as you would eat a gazelle or a deer. 23Only take care that you do not eat the blood, you shall pour it out on the ground like water.
- Dt 15,7 It is painful for the author of the book to find that there are poor people on the land God gave to his children: did God not give all that was necessary for everyone? Yet, there are poor people and he asks believers to help them break out of this subhuman situation. It is not a question of giving them a piece of bread for today, but of loaning them what they need to begin again, to work the land of their fathers and to earn a living with dignity. The Israelites know that debts are cancelled every seven years. Even with that, they will loan what is necessary.
