REST + RECOVERY: What We Can Learn from the Shmita Year

(1) You must not carry false rumors; you shall not join hands with the guilty to act as a malicious witness:(2) You shall neither side with the mighty to do wrong—you shall not give perverse testimony in a dispute so as to pervert it in favor of the mighty^-a—(3) nor shall you show deference to a poor man in his dispute.(4) When you encounter your enemy’s ox or ass wandering, you must take it back to him.(5) When you see the ass of your enemy lying under its burden and would refrain from raising it, you must nevertheless raise it with him.(6) You shall not subvert the rights of your needy in their disputes.(7) Keep far from a false charge; do not bring death on those who are innocent and in the right, for I will not acquit the wrongdoer.(8) Do not take bribes, for bribes blind the clear-sighted and upset the pleas of those who are in the right.(9) You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.(10) Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield;(11) but in the seventhyou shall let it rest and lie fallow. Let the needy among your people eat of it, and what they leave let the wild beasts eat. You shall do the same with your vineyards and your olive groves.

(1) The LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai:(2) Speak to the Israelite people and say to them:
When you enter the land that I assign to you, the land shall observe a sabbath of the LORD.(3) Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather in the yield.(4) But in the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath of complete rest (Shabbat of Shabbats), a sabbath of the LORD: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard.(5) You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your untrimmed vines; it shall be a year of complete rest for the land.(6) But you may eat whatever the land during its sabbath(Shabbat of the land) will produce—you, your male and female slaves, the hired and bound laborers who live with you,(7) and your cattle and the beasts in your land may eat all its yield.

(1) Every seventh year^-a you shall practice remission of debts.(2) This shall be the nature of the remission: every creditor shall remit the due that he claims from his fellow; he shall not dun his fellow or kinsman, for the remission proclaimed is of the LORD.(3) You may dun the foreigner; but you must remit whatever is due you from your kinsmen.(4) There shall be no needy among you—since the LORD your God will bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you as a hereditary portion—(5) if only you heed the LORD your God and take care to keep all this Instruction that I enjoin upon you this day.(6) For the LORD your God will bless you as He has promised you: you will extend loans to many nations, but require none yourself; you will dominate many nations, but they will not dominate you.(7) If, however, there is a needy person among you, one of your kinsmen in any of your settlements in the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kinsman.(8) Rather, you must open your hand and lend him sufficient for whatever he needs.(9) Beware lest you harbor the base thought, “The seventh year, the year of remission, is approaching,” so that you are mean to your needy kinsman and give him nothing. He will cry out to the LORD against you, and you will incur guilt.(10) Give to him readily and have no regrets when you do so, for in return the LORD your God will bless you in all your efforts and in all your undertakings.(11) For there will never cease to be needy ones in your land, which is why I command you: open your hand to the poor and needy kinsman in your land.