Jesus apparently employs a common figure of speech when he speaks of a camel passing through a needle's eye (see Abrahams 1924:208; Dalman 1929:230). As much as we want Jesus to have said something else, he said that the rich and powerful could barely enter the kingdom at all. This statement shocked the sensibilities of the disciples even more than verse 10 had; they share the values of Jesus' enemies (Rhoads and Michie 1982:91-92; Mt 16:23). Presumably because many of their contemporaries viewed wealth as a mark of God's blessing (for example, Ep. Arist. 204-5; m. Qiddusin 4:14), the disciples may have assumed that Jesus' standard for people who were not rich was even stricter. If not the rich, who then can be saved? (19:25). Yet because God alone is good (v. 17), salvation by merely human means is impossible for anyone.