greed

¹⁰For desire is the root of all evils. Some persons, hungering in this way, have strayed from the faith and have entangled themselves in many sorrows.

¹⁵So he said to them: “Be cautious and wary of all avarice. For a person’s life is not found in the abundance of the things that he possesses.”

²⁵Whoever boasts and enlarges himself stirs up conflicts. Yet truly, whoever trusts in the Lord will be healed.

⁹For those who want to become rich fall into temptation and into the snare of the devil and into many useless and harmful desires, which submerge men in destruction and in perdition.

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.”

²⁷Whoever pursues avarice disturbs his own house. But whoever hates bribes shall live. Through mercy and faith, sins are purged. But through the fear of the Lord, each one turns aside from evil.

²⁴No one is able to serve two masters. For either he will have hatred for the one, and love the other, or he will persevere with the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

¹⁰Where there are many riches, there will also be many to consume these things. And how does it benefit the one who possesses, except that he discerns the wealth with his own eyes?

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

¹⁶For all that is in the world is the desire of the flesh, and the desire of the eyes, and the arrogance of a life which is not of the Father, but is of the world.

⁹Do you not know that the iniquitous will not possess the kingdom of God? Do not choose to wander astray. For neither fornicators, nor servants of idolatry, nor adulterers, ¹⁰nor the effeminate, nor males who sleep with males, nor thieves, nor the avaricious, nor the inebriated, nor slanderers, nor the rapacious shall possess the kingdom of God. ¹¹And some of you were like this. But you have been absolved, but you have been sanctified, but you have been justified: all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

⁵Therefore, mortify your body, while it is upon the earth. For because of fornication, impurity, lust, evil desires, and avarice, which are a kind of service to idols,

¹Act now, you who are wealthy! Weep and wail in your miseries, which will soon come upon you! ²Your riches have been corrupted, and your garments have been eaten by moths. ³Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be a testimony against you, and it will eat away at your flesh like fire. You have stored up wrath for yourselves unto the last days. ⁴Consider the pay of the workers who reaped your fields: it has been misappropriated by you; it cries out. And their cry has entered into the ears of the Lord of hosts. ⁵You have feasted upon the earth, and you have nourished your hearts with luxuries, unto the day of slaughter. ⁶You led away and killed the Just One, and he did not resist you.

²¹When an inheritance is obtained hastily in the beginning, in the end it will be without a blessing.