Exodus 23:10-11 from the Message
"Sow your land for six years and gather in its crops, but in the seventh year leave it alone and give it a rest so that your poor may eat from it. What they leave, let the wildlife have. Do the same with your vineyards and olive groves.
Leviticus 19:9-10 from the Message
"When you harvest your land, don't harvest right up to the edges of your field or gather the gleanings from the harvest. Don't strip your vineyard bare or go back and pick up the fallen grapes. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am GOD, your God.
Leviticus 19:19 from the Message"Keep my decrees. "Don't mate two different kinds of animals. "Don't plant your fields with two kinds of seed. "Don't wear clothes woven of two kinds of material.
Leviticus 19:23-25 from the Message"When you enter the land and plant any kind of fruit tree, don't eat the fruit for three years; consider it inedible. By the fourth year its fruit is holy, an offering of praise to GOD. Beginning in the fifth year you can eat its fruit; you'll have richer harvests this way. I am GOD, your God.
Leviticus 25:3-7 from the Message
Sow your fields, prune your vineyards, and take in your harvests for six years. But the seventh year the land will take a Sabbath of complete and total rest, a Sabbath to GOD; you will not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. Don't reap what grows of itself; don't harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land gets a year of complete and total rest. But you can eat from what the land volunteers during the Sabbath year--you and your men and women servants, your hired hands, and the foreigners who live in the country, and, of course, also your livestock and the wild animals in the land can eat from it. Whatever the land volunteers of itself can be eaten.
Leviticus 25:20-23 from the Message
Do I hear you ask, 'What are we going to eat in the seventh year if we don't plant or harvest?' I assure you, I will send such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years. While you plant in the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and continue until the harvest of the ninth year comes in. "The land cannot be sold permanently because the land is mine and you are foreigners--you're my tenants.
Leviticus 26:3-5 from the Message
"If you live by my decrees and obediently keep my commandments, I will send the rains in their seasons, the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit. You will thresh until the grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting time; you'll have more than enough to eat and will live safe and secure in your land.
Leviticus 26:14-16 from the Message
"If you will not listen to me and obey all these commands, if you reject my laws and look at my rules with disgust, if you reject my promise by disobeying my commands, then this is what I will do to you: I will terrorize you with disease and fever. You will suffer from eye problems and depression. You will plant your crops and get nothing because your enemies will eat them.
Leviticus 26:23-35 from the Message
"If this discipline does not help and you still resist, then I, too, will resist you. I will punish you seven times for your sins. I will bring war on you to get revenge for my promise that you rejected. When you gather in your cities, I will send plagues on you and you will fall under the control of your enemy. I will destroy your food supply. Ten women will need only one oven to prepare your food. You will eat and go away hungry. "If in spite of this you do not listen to me and still resist me, I will fiercely resist you. I will discipline you seven times for your sins. You will eat the bodies of your sons and daughters. I will destroy your worship sites, cut down your incense altars, and pile your dead bodies on top of your dead idols. I will look at you with disgust. I will make your cities deserted and ruin your sacred places. I will no longer accept the soothing aroma from your sacrifices. I will make your land so deserted that your enemies will be shocked as they settle in it. I will scatter you among the nations. War will follow you. Your country will be in ruins. Your cities will be deserted. "Then the land will enjoy its time to honor the LORD while it lies deserted and you are in your enemies' land. Then the land will joyfully celebrate its time to honor the LORD. All the days it lies deserted, it will celebrate the time to honor the LORD it never celebrated while you lived there.
