5
"So, after making appointments with each of his employer's debtors, he said to the first, `How much do you owe my boss?'
6
`Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,' he replied. `Take your note back,' he told him. `Now, quickly! Sit down and write one for four hundred!'
7
To the next he said, `And you, how much do you owe?' `A thousand bushels of wheat,' he replied. `Take your note back and write one for eight hundred.'
8
"And the employer of this dishonest manager applauded him for acting so shrewdly! For the worldly have more sekhel than those who have received the light -- in dealing with their own kind of people!
9
"Now what I say to you is this: use worldly wealth to make friends for yourselves, so that when it gives out, you may be welcomed into the eternal home.
10
Someone who is trustworthy in a small matter is also trustworthy in large ones, and someone who is dishonest in a small matter is also dishonest in large ones.
11
So if you haven't been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who is going to trust you with the real thing?
12
And if you haven't been trustworthy with what belongs to someone else, who will give you what ought to belong to you?
13
No servant can be slave to two masters, for he will either hate the first and love the second, or scorn the second and be loyal to the first. You can't be a slave to both God and money."
14
The P'rushim heard all this, and since they were money-lovers, they ridiculed him.
15
He said to them, "You people make yourselves look righteous to others, but God knows your hearts; what people regard highly is an abomination before God!