The Shrewd Manager
1He also said to his disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and this manager was reported to him for squandering his property. 2So he called him in and said, ‘What is this I hear about you? Hand in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ 3The manager said to himself, ‘What am I to do, now that my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 4I know what I will do, so that when I am removed from the management people will welcome me into their homes.’ 5So he called in his master’s debtors one by one. To the first he said, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6‘A hundred baths of oil,’ he answered. He told him, ‘Here is your bill. Sit down, quickly, and write fifty.’ 7Then he said to another, ‘And you, how much do you owe?’ ‘A hundred kors of wheat,’ he said. He told him, ‘Here is your bill; write eighty.’ 8And the master praised the dishonest manager for acting shrewdly — for the children of this age deal more shrewdly with their own kind than the children of light. 9And I tell you: make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest Mammon, so that when it fails you they may welcome you into the eternal dwellings. 10Whoever is faithful in the smallest matter is faithful also in a great one, and whoever is dishonest in the smallest matter is dishonest also in a great one. 11So if you have not proved faithful with dishonest Mammon, who will entrust you with what is real? 12And if you have not proved faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? 13No servant can serve two masters: either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to the one and think nothing of the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon.”
The Law and the Kingdom
14The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all this, and they sneered at him. 15So he said to them, “You are the ones who make yourselves look righteous in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts; for what stands high among people is detestable in the sight of God. 16The law and the prophets ran until John; from then on the kingdom of God is announced as good news, and everyone forces a way into it. 17Yet it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter of the law to fall. 18Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and the man who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.
The Rich Man and Lazarus
19There was a rich man who dressed in purple and fine linen and feasted in splendor day after day. 20And a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, had been laid at his gateway, 21longing to fill himself with what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs would come and lick his sores. 22In time the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, 23and in Hades, where he was in torment, he lifted his eyes and saw Abraham far away, and Lazarus at his side. 24So he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’ 25But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in the same way the bad. Now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. 26Besides all this, a great chasm has been fixed between us and you, so that those who want to cross from here to you cannot, and no one crosses from there to us.’ 27He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, send him to my father’s house, 28for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they too may not come to this place of torment.’ 29Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them listen to them.’ 30‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ 31Abraham said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”
