Luke 12:18-49

¹⁸And he said, This will I do: I will take away my granaries and build greater, and there I will lay up all my produce and my good things;

¹⁹and I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much good things laid by for many years; repose thyself, eat, drink, be merry.

²⁰But God said to him, Fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee; and whose shall be what thou hast prepared?

²¹Thus is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

²²And he said to his disciples, For this cause I say unto you, Be not careful for life, what ye shall eat, nor for the body, what ye shall put on.

²³The life is more than food, and the body than raiment.

²⁴Consider the ravens, that they sow not nor reap; which have neither storehouse nor granary; and God feeds them. How much better are ye than the birds?

²⁵But which of you by being careful can add to his stature one cubit?

²⁶If therefore ye cannot do even what is least, why are ye careful about the rest?

²⁷Consider the lilies how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I say unto you, Not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed as one of these.

²⁸But if God thus clothe the grass, which to-day is in the field and to-morrow is cast into the oven, how much rather you, O ye of little faith?

²⁹And ye, seek not what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, and be not in anxiety;

³⁰for all these things do the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that ye have need of these things;

³¹but seek his kingdom, and all these things shall be added to you.

³²Fear not, little flock, for it has been the good pleasure of your Father to give you the kingdom.

³³Sell what ye possess and give alms; make to yourselves purses which do not grow old, a treasure which does not fail in the heavens, where thief does not draw near nor moth destroy.

³⁴For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.

³⁵Let your loins be girded about, and lamps burning;

³⁶and ye like men who wait their own lord whenever he may leave the wedding, that when he comes and knocks, they may open to him immediately.

³⁷Blessed are those bondmen whom the lord on coming shall find watching; verily I say unto you, that he will gird himself and make them recline at table, and coming up will serve them.

³⁸And if he come in the second watch, and come in the third watch, and find them thus, blessed are those bondmen.

³⁹But this know, that if the master of the house had known in what hour the thief was coming, he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be dug through.

⁴⁰And ye therefore, be ye ready, for in the hour in which ye do not think it, the Son of man comes.

⁴¹And Peter said to him, Lord, sayest thou this parable to us, or also to all?

⁴²And the Lord said, Who then is the faithful and prudent steward, whom his lord will set over his household, to give the measure of corn in season?

⁴³Blessed is that bondman whom his lord on coming shall find doing thus;

⁴⁴verily I say unto you, that he will set him over all that he has.

⁴⁵But if that bondman should say in his heart, My lord delays to come, and begin to beat the menservants and the maidservants, and to eat and to drink and to be drunken,

⁴⁶the lord of that bondman shall come in a day when he does not expect it, and in an hour he knows not of, and shall cut him in two and appoint his portion with the unbelievers.

⁴⁷But that bondman who knew his own lord's will, and had not prepared himself nor done his will, shall be beaten with many stripes;

⁴⁸but he who knew it not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few. And to every one to whom much has been given, much shall be required from him; and to whom men have committed much, they will ask from him the more.

⁴⁹I have come to cast a fire on the earth; and what will I if already it has been kindled?