16 Yeshua also told this to his followers, “Once there was a rich man who had a manager who worked for him. A whistle-blower reported that the manager had been abusing the owner’s possessions 2 so the owner called him and asked, ‘What’s this I’m hearing about you? Give back the ledgers because I don’t want you as a manager any more.’ 3 Then the manager thought to himself, ‘Oh dear, what will I do now that I’m losing this management job? I’m not strong enough to be out digging and I’d be too ashamed to beg. 4 I know what I’ll do so that when I lose my job, I’ll still be popular with everyone else.’ 5 So he called in each person who owed money to his master. He asked the first one, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil,’ he replied. ‘Well, bring the contract here and change it quickly to fifty,’ the manager said. 7 Then he asked the next one, ‘How much do you owe?’ ‘A hundred containers of wheat,’ the man replied. ‘Get the contract form and change it to eighty,’ said the manager. 8 When he heard, the landowner praised the dishonest manager for his shrewdness because the modern generation are better at working the system than the children of light in their generation.

9 “So I’m telling you all to use worldly money to make friends for yourselves, so that whenever it runs out, they’ll accept you all into the eternal homes.[fn] 10 Anyone who’s faithful with a little is also faithful with much, and the person who’s dishonest with a little is also dishonest with a lot. 11 Because of that, if you aren’t faithful with worldly money, who would entrust true wealth to you all? 12 If you’re not faithful in your treatment of strangers, who would give you anything for yourselves?

13 [ref]“No household servant can serve two masters, because either they’ll hate the one and love the other, or they’ll support the one and despise the other.”