Social Injustice Denounced

¹⁶ Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. ¹⁷ And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ ¹⁸ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. ¹⁹ And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’^{(A) 20} But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’^{(B) 21} So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”^(C)

Do Not Worry

²² He said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. ²³ For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. ²⁴ Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!^(D)

¹⁶ As soon as Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, Ahab set out to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it.

Elijah Pronounces God’s Sentence

¹⁷ Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying,^{(A) 18} “Go down to meet King Ahab of Israel, who rules^[a] in Samaria; he is now in the vineyard of Naboth, where he has gone to take possession.^{(B) 19} You shall say to him: Thus says the Lord: Have you killed and also taken possession? You shall say to him: Thus says the Lord: In the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up your blood.”^(C)

²⁰ Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found me, O my enemy?” He answered, “I have found you. Because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord,^(D)

¹³ “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in you stop them.^[a](A)

²⁴ Mortal, the inhabitants of these waste places in the land of Israel keep saying, “Abraham was only one man, yet he got possession of the land, but we are many; the land is surely given us to possess.”^(A)

¹⁵ Mortal, your kinsfolk, your own kin, your fellow exiles,^[a] the whole house of Israel, all of them, are those of whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, “Stay far from the Lord; to us this land is given for a possession.”^(A)