Luke 16:1-9

New Testament for Everyone

The parable of the shrewd manager

16 Jesus said to his disciples, “Once there was a rich man who had a steward, and charges were laid against him that he was squandering his property. ² So he called him and said to him, ‘What’s all this I hear about you? Present an account of your stewardship; I’m not going to have you as my steward anymore!’

³ “At this, the steward said to himself, ‘What shall I do? My master is taking away my stewardship from me! I can’t do manual work, and I’d be ashamed to beg . . .

⁴ “ ‘I have an idea what to do!—so that people will welcome me into their households when I am fired from being steward.’

⁵ “So he called his master’s debtors to him, one by one. ‘How much,’ he asked the first, ‘do you owe my master?’

⁶ “ ‘A hundred measures of olive oil,’ he replied.

“ ‘Take your bill,’ he said to him, ‘sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’

⁷ “To another he said, ‘And how much do you owe?’

“ ‘A hundred measures of wheat,’ he replied.

“ ‘Take your bill,’ he said, ‘and make it eighty.’

⁸ “And the master praised the dishonest steward because he had acted wisely. The children of this world, you see, are wiser than the children of light when it comes to dealing with their own generation.

⁹ “So let me tell you this: use that dishonest stuff called money to make yourselves friends! Then, when it gives out, they will welcome you into homes that will last.”