Part 27

015:029 "`All these years,' replied the son, `I have been slaving for you, and I have never at any time disobeyed any of your orders, and yet you have never given me so much as a kid, for me to enjoy myself with my friends;

015:030 but now that this son of yours is come who has eaten up your property among his bad women, you have killed the fat calf for him.'

015:031 "`You my dear son,' said the father, `are always with me, and all that is mine is also yours.

015:032 We are bound to make merry and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has come back to life, he was lost and has been found.'"

016:001 He said also to His disciples: "There was a rich man who had a steward, about whom a report was brought to him, that he was wasting his property.

016:002 He called him and said, "`What is this I hear about you? Render an account of your stewardship, for I cannot let you hold it any longer.'

016:003 "Then the steward said within himself, "`What am I to do? For my master is taking away the stewardship from me. I am not strong enough for field labour: to beg, I should be ashamed.

016:004 I see what to do, in order that when I am discharged from the stewardship they may give me a home in their own houses.'

016:005 "So he called all his master's debtors, one by one, and asked the first, `How much are you in debt to my master?'

016:006 "`A hundred firkins of oil,' he replied. "`Here is your account,' said the steward: `sit down quickly and change it into fifty firkins.'

016:007 "To a second he said, "`And how much do you owe?' "`A hundred quarters of wheat,' was the answer. "`Here is your account,' said he: `change it into eighty quarters.'

016:008 "And the master praised the dishonest steward for his shrewdness; for, in relation to their own contemporaries, the men of this age are shrewder than the sons of Light.

016:009 "But I charge you, so to use the wealth which is ever tempting to dishonesty as to win friends who, when it fails, shall welcome you to the tents that never perish.

016:010 The man who is honest in a very small matter is honest in a great one also; and he who is dishonest in a very small matter is dishonest in a great one also.

016:011 If therefore you have not proved yourselves faithful in dealing with the wealth that is tainted with fraud, who will entrust to you the true good?

016:012 And if you have not been faithful in dealing with that which is not your own, who will give you that which is your own?

016:013 "No servant can be in bondage to two masters. For either he will hate one and love the other, or else he will cling fast to one and scorn the other. You cannot be bondservants both of God and of gold."

016:014 To all this the Pharisees listened, bitterly jeering at Him; for they were lovers of money.

016:015 "You are they," He said to them, "who boast of their own goodness before men, but God sees your hearts; for that which holds a proud position among men is detestable in God's sight.

016:016 The Law and the Prophets continued until John came: from that time the Good News of the Kingdom of God has been spreading, and all classes have been forcing their way into it.

016:017 But it is easier for earth and sky to pass away than for one smallest detail of the Law to fall to the ground.

016:018 Every man who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and he who marries her when so divorced from her husband commits adultery.

016:019 "There was once a rich man who habitually arrayed himself in purple and fine linen, and enjoyed a splendid banquet every day,

016:020 while at his outer door there lay a beggar, Lazarus by name,

016:021 covered with sores and longing to make a full meal off the scraps flung on the floor from the rich man's table. Nay, the dogs, too, used to come and lick his sores.

016:022 "But in course of time the beggar died; and he was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died, and had a funeral.

016:023 And in Hades, being in torment, he looked and saw Abraham in the far distance, and Lazarus resting in his arms.

016:024 So he cried aloud, and said, "`Father Abraham, take pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.'