A Warning to the Rich

5 You rich people, listen! Cry and be very sad because of the trouble that will come to you. ² Your riches will rot, and your clothes will be eaten by moths. ³ Your gold and silver will rust, and rust will be a proof that you were wrong. It will eat your bodies like fire. You saved your treasure for the last days. ⁴ Men worked in your fields, but you did not pay them. They harvested your crops and are crying out against you. Now the Lord of heaven’s armies has heard their cries. ⁵ Your life on earth was full of rich living. You pleased yourselves with everything you wanted. You made yourselves fat, like an animal ready to be killed. ⁶ You showed no mercy to the innocent man. You murdered him. He cannot stand against you.

True Wealth

16 Jesus also said to his followers, “Once there was a rich man. He had a manager to take care of his business. Later, the rich man learned that his manager was cheating him. ² So he called the manager in and said to him, ‘I have heard bad things about you. Give me a report of what you have done with my money. You can’t be my manager any longer!’ ³ Later, the manager thought to himself, ‘What will I do? My master is taking my job away from me! I am not strong enough to dig ditches. I am too proud to beg. ⁴ I know! I’ll do something so that when I lose my job, people will welcome me into their homes.’

⁵ “So the manager called in everyone who owed the master any money. He said to the first man, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ ⁶ The man answered, ‘I owe him 800 gallons of olive oil.’ The manager said to him, ‘Here is your bill; sit down quickly and make the bill less. Write 400 gallons.’ ⁷ Then the manager said to another man, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ The man answered, ‘I owe him 1,000 bushels of wheat.’ Then the manager said to him, ‘Here is your bill; you can make it less. Write 800 bushels.’ ⁸ Later, the master praised the dishonest manager for being smart. Yes, worldly people are smarter with their own kind than spiritual people are.

⁹ “I tell you, make friends for yourselves using worldly riches. Then, when those things are gone, you will be welcomed in that home that continues forever. ¹⁰ Whoever can be trusted with small things can also be trusted with large things. Whoever is dishonest in little things will be dishonest in large things too. ¹¹ If you cannot be trusted with worldly riches, then you will not be trusted with the true riches. ¹² And if you cannot be trusted with the things that belong to someone else, then you will not be given things of your own.

¹³ “No servant can serve two masters. He will hate one master and love the other. Or he will follow one master and refuse to follow the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

God’s Law Cannot Be Changed

¹⁴ The Pharisees were listening to all these things. They made fun of Jesus because they all loved money. ¹⁵ Jesus said to them, “You make yourselves look good in front of people. But God knows what is really in your hearts. The things that are important to people are worth nothing to God.

God Is More Important Than Money

¹⁹ “Don’t store treasures for yourselves here on earth. Moths and rust will destroy treasures here on earth. And thieves can break into your house and steal the things you have. ²⁰ So store your treasure in heaven. The treasures in heaven cannot be destroyed by moths or rust. And thieves cannot break in and steal that treasure. ²¹ Your heart will be where your treasure is.

²² “The eye is a light for the body. If your eyes are good, then your whole body will be full of light. ²³ But if your eyes are evil, then your whole body will be full of darkness. And if the only light you have is really darkness, then you have the worst darkness.

²⁴ “No one can be a slave to two masters. He will hate one master and love the other. Or he will follow one master and refuse to follow the other. So you cannot serve God and money at the same time.

6 All who are slaves should show full respect to their masters. Then no one will speak against God’s name and our teaching. ² Some slaves have masters who are believers. This means they are all brothers. But the slaves should not show their masters any less respect. They should serve their masters even better, because they are helping believers they love.

False Teaching and True Riches

You must teach and preach these things. ³ If anyone has a different teaching, he does not accept the true teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that teaching shows him the true way to serve God. ⁴ The person who teaches falsely is full of pride and understands nothing. He is sick with a love for arguing and fighting about words. And that brings jealousy, making trouble, insults, and evil mistrust. ⁵ And that also brings arguments from men who have evil minds. They have lost the truth. They think that serving God is a way to get rich.

⁶ It is true that serving God makes a person very rich, if he is satisfied with what he has. ⁷ When we came into the world, we brought nothing. And when we die, we can take nothing out. ⁸ So, if we have food and clothes, we will be satisfied with that. ⁹ Those who want to become rich bring temptation to themselves. They are caught in a trap. They begin to want many foolish things that will hurt them, things that ruin and destroy people. ¹⁰ The love of money causes all kinds of evil. Some people have left the true faith because they want to get more and more money. But they have caused themselves much sorrow.