Let your land rest the seventh year. Do not harvest anything that grows on it. The poor may eat what grows there. The wild animals may have what is left. Do the same with your vineyards and your olive trees.

Do not glean your vineyard. Do not gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard. Leave them for the needy and for the stranger. I am Jehovah your God.

Rejoice (be filled with joy) before Jehovah your God, you and your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levite who is within your gates, since he has no portion or inheritance with you.

This food is for the Levites, since they own no property, and for the foreigners, orphans, and widows who live in your towns. They are to come and get all they need. Do this, and Jehovah your God will bless you in everything you do.

There will always be some Israelites who are poor and needy. That is why I am commanding you to be generous with them.

I have been young, and now I am old, but I have never seen a righteous person abandoned or his descendants begging for food.

Let his children wander around and beg. Let them seek help far from their ruined homes.

They arrived at Jericho. He left there with his disciples and a large crowd. A blind beggar named Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the side of the road.

A poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, used to be brought to the rich man's door. He hoped he could eat the bits of food that fell from the rich man's table. Then the dogs would come and lick his sores.

A man who had been crippled from birth was carried to the gate of the temple called Beautiful. There he begged for handouts from those who entered the temple.

Now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and poor fundamental things? Do you want to slave for them all over again?