being stingy

³⁸Give, and it will be given to you: a good measure, pressed down and shaken together and overflowing, they will place upon your lap. Certainly, the same measure that you use to measure out, will be used to measure back to you again.”

²⁴Some distribute their own goods, and they become wealthier. Others seize what is not their own, and they are always in need.

²²A man who hurries to become rich, and who envies others, does not know that destitution will overwhelm him.

⁵Let your behavior be without avarice; be content with what you are offered. For he himself has said, “I will not abandon you, and I will not neglect you.”

¹⁶We know the love of God in this way: because he laid down his life for us. And so, we must lay down our lives for our brothers. ¹⁷Whoever possesses the goods of this world, and sees his brother to be in need, and yet closes his heart to him: in what way does the love of God abide in him? ¹⁸My little sons, let us not love in words only, but in works and in truth.

¹In the days of one of the judges, when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. And a man from Bethlehem in Judah departed to sojourn in the region of the Moabites with his wife and two children. ²He called himself Elimelech, and his wife Naomi, and his two sons, the one Mahlon, and the other Chilion, Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. And entering into the region of the Moabites, they stayed there. ³And Elimelech the husband of Naomi died; and she remained with her sons. ⁴They took wives from among the Moabites, of whom one was called Orpah, and the other Ruth. And they lived there ten years. ⁵And they both died, namely Mahlon and Chilion, and the woman was left alone, bereaved of her two children and her husband. ⁶And she arose so that she might journey to her native land, with both her daughters-in-law, from the region of the Moabites. For she had heard that the Lord had provided for his people and had given them food.

³⁵I have revealed all things to you, because by laboring in this way, it is necessary to support the weak and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”

²⁶Whoever hides away grain shall be cursed among the people. But a blessing is upon the head of those who sell it.

³You ask and you do not receive, because you ask badly, so that you may use it toward your own desires.

³Let nothing be done by contention, nor in vain glory. Instead, in humility, let each of you esteem others to be better than himself.

⁵But if anyone among you is in need of wisdom, let him petition God, who gives abundantly to all without reproach, and it shall be given to him. ⁶But he should ask with faith, doubting nothing. For he who doubts is like a wave on the ocean, which is moved about by the wind and carried away; ⁷then a man should not consider that he would receive anything from the Lord.