Only gleanings will be left in Israel, as if an olive tree had been beaten – two or three olives at the very top of the tree, four or five on its fruitful branches. This is the declaration of the Lord, the God of Israel.
Whatever the land produces during the Sabbath year can be food for you #– #for yourself, your male or female slave, and the hired worker or foreigner who resides with you.
How sad for me! For I am like one who – when the summer fruit has been gathered after the gleaning of the grape harvest – finds no grape cluster to eat, no early fig, which I crave.
If thieves came to you, if marauders by night – how ravaged you would be! – wouldn’t they steal only what they wanted? If grape harvesters came to you, wouldn’t they leave a few grapes?
When you reap the harvest of your land, you are not to reap all the way to the edge of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the resident foreigner; I am the Lord your God.’
‘When you reap the harvest in your field, and you forget a sheaf in the field, do not go back to get it. It is to be left for the resident foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.
When you knock down the fruit from your olive tree, do not go over the branches again. What remains will be for the resident foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow.
Ruth the Moabitess asked Naomi, ‘Will you let me go into the fields and gather fallen corn behind someone with whom I find favour? ’ Naomi answered her, ‘Go ahead, my daughter.’
For I am the Lord your God, so you must consecrate yourselves and be holy because I am holy. Do not defile yourselves by any swarming creature that crawls on the ground.
When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not glean what is left. What remains will be for the resident foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow.