1Then Jesus told his followers another picture story. He said, “There was a rich and that was running a big business, and he had another man working in his office. That man was his manager. He looked after the rich man’s money. Somebody told the rich man, ‘Hey, your manager is wasting your money.’
2So that boss said to his manager, ‘They tell me you are not doing your job properly, so I’m going to sack you. Now write down everything you have done with my money, and after that you can go.’
3The manager thought to himself, ‘I will soon have no job. What will I do to get money for my food? I’m not strong enough to do hard work, like digging the ground. And I’m ashamed to ask people for money all the time.
4Ah, I know what I will do. I will get some people to like me, so that when I have no job, they will look after me and they will let me live in their homes.’
5There were some people that borrowed things from that rich man, and they had not yet given anything back to him. So the manager called these people into the office. He asked one, ‘What did you borrow from my boss?’
6That man answered, ‘I borrowed 100 drums of oil.’ The manager said, ‘We can change that. Here is the paper that has the numbers on it. I’ll let you change it right now. Make it 50 drums of oil.’
7Then the manager asked the next man, ‘What did you borrow from my boss?’ That man answered, ‘I borrowed 100 bags of flour.’ The manager said, ‘We can change that. Here is the paper, I’ll let you change it right now. Make it 80 bags of flour.’
8That manager was cheating his boss, but his boss thought, ‘This man is a liar and a cheat, but he is smart too. He has done something that will help him get his food later.’” Then Jesus said, “You know, the people that don’t care about God, but only care about the things in this world, they are smarter with the things of this world than God’s people.
9This is what you can learn from that story. Use your money now to help people that need money, and then later, after you die and have nothing on this earth, God will say, ‘Good on you. Come and live for ever here in heaven.’”
10Then Jesus said, “If people can trust you with little things, they can trust you with big things too. If you cheat with little things, you will cheat with big things too.
11So if you cheat when you handle money and other things of this world, God will not trust you to handle the very dear spiritual things of heaven.
12And if you don’t handle other people’s things properly, God will not give you things for yourself.
13You see, you can’t work for 2 bosses at the same time. If you try to do that, you will like one boss and work properly for him, and you will not like the other boss, and not work properly for him. You see, you can’t have God as your boss, and money as your boss, both at the same time.”
14The Jewish law men, called Pharisees, they loved their money. They heard Jesus teach these things, and they laughed at him.
15Then Jesus told them, “You mob want everyone to think you are good, but God knows what you are really like, and he knows what you think inside your heads. You see, there are things that people reckon are important, but God thinks those things are rubbish.
16You know, God gave Moses the law for people to follow, and he sent other men to tell people God’s messages. And God’s people followed those words, from the time of Moses until the time that John the Baptiser came. Then John told people about the new way. And I’m telling people about that new way too. I’m telling them how to join God’s family, too, and now lots of people are trying hard to get into God’s family.
17But the laws from Moses will not go away. You know, the sky and the earth will stay here for a long time, and while they stay here, God’s words will stay here too. God won’t change any little bit of them. They will stay here till everything in them happens.”
18Then Jesus said, “Some of those words from God are about people that want to break up their marriage. It is wrong. If a man divorces his wife and marries another woman, he is sleeping with the wrong woman. She is not his proper wife. And if another man marries the divorced woman, that man is sleeping with the wrong woman, too.”
19Jesus told them another picture story. He said, “There was a rich man that always wore real good clothes, and he always had plenty of good food to eat.
20And there was a very poor man, called Lazarus, that had a lot of sores on his body. He was hungry, but he had nothing to eat, so he lay down at the gate of the rich man’s house.
21He hoped he might get some of the rubbish food that the rich man chucked away. That rich man didn’t give him any good food. The dogs there used to lick that poor man’s sores.
22Then one day the poor man died, and God sent his angel messengers to get him and take him to heaven to be with Abraham, our grand-father of a long time ago. Then later the rich man died, and his family buried his body.
23But he went to the bad place called hell. He was in a big fire in that place, and it hurt him a lot. Then he looked up and he saw Abraham, a long way off, and he saw Lazarus there with Abraham.
24So he yelled out loud, he said, ‘Hey, Grandpa Abraham, this fire is hurting me a lot. Be sorry for me and send Lazarus to bring some water to me, and dip his finger in it and put it on my tongue, to cool it a little bit.’
25But Abraham said, ‘Just a minute, son. Remember that when you were alive on the earth, you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing. So now he is here, and we are making him feel good, but you are there in that fire.
26And anyway, he can’t go to you. There is a really big gully in between this place and that place where you are. Nobody can cross over from here to that place, and nobody can come from that place to here.
27Then the rich man said, ‘Then how about this, Grandpa Abraham. Send Lazarus back to the earth, to my family.
28I’ve got 5 brothers there. Get Lazarus to tell them about this bad place, so they will stop living the bad way. If they turn around and live God’s way they will not end up in this bad place.’
29But Abraham said, ‘God told his message to Moses, and to his other men too. They wrote God’s word in his book. Your brothers can read that book at any time, and if they do what God says, they will not end up in that bad place.’
30The rich man said, ‘My brothers don’t take any notice of God’s book. But if a dead person will come alive again and talk to them, they will take notice of him. Then they will stop doing bad things, turn around and do good things.’
31But Abraham said, ‘Look, if they take no notice of Moses, and if they take no notice of the things God’s men wrote in his book, they will not take any notice of anyone, not even a dead person that comes alive again.’”
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