Translation: Luke 16:1-9

(Please feel free to use this translation.  Credit:  Rev. Murray Speer.)

He kept speaking to his disciples:  There once was a rich man who had a steward, and this one was slandered to him how he was spreading around his wealth.  And he called him and said to him:  “What is this I hear about you?  Produce the books of your stewardship, for you can no longer steward.”

And the steward said to himself:  “What will I do now that the master has removed the stewardship from me?  I am not strong to dig; I am ashamed to beg.  I know what I will do, so that when thrown out of the stewardship they will welcome me into their houses. “

And calling his master’s debtors one at a time, he kept speaking to them.  To the first: “What do you owe to my master?”  And he said one hundred barrels of oil.  And he said to him, “Take your account and sit down; quickly write fifty.”  To another he spoke: “And what do you owe to my master?”  And he said one hundred loads of grain.  He said to him, “Take your account and write eighty.”

And the master praised the steward’s unrighteousness, because he acted with insight.  Because the sons of this age are more insightful than the sons of light into this age in which they live.  And I say to you: Use your unrighteous wealth to make true friends for yourself, so that when this age ends they may welcome you in the eternal dwelling place.

Translation: Luke 18:9-14

(Please feel free to use this translation.  Credit:  Rev. Murray Speer.)

And now he spoke to some people who were confident in their own faithfulness and despised all the rest, and told this parable:

"Two men went up to the temple to pray.  One, a Pharisee.  The other, a tax-collector.  The Pharisee, standing in the open, was praying:
'God, thank you that I am not like all the rest: thieves, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector.  I fast two times every week [instead of just once] and I give a tenth of everything I own [not only things that are normally tithed].'

"But the tax-collector stood way in the back and would not even raise his eyes upward.  He kept hitting his breast, and said:
'God, show compassion to me, who is not a good Jew.'

"I tell you, when this one went down to his house he was pronounced faithful, more than the other one.  Because those who raise themselves up will be brought down, and those who bring themselves down will be raised up."