Luke 16 — Liberation and Inclusion Translation

Vélez Johnson, Brandon C.

¹ Jesus also told his students, “There was a wealthy person who had a household manager, and he received accusations that the manager was scattering^a his resources. ² He called the manager and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give your household ledger back because you are no longer permitted to manage the household.’ ³ So the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, since my employer^b is taking the management of the household away from me? ⁴ I know what I’ll do! And this way, when I’m removed from managing the household, people will welcome me into their households.’ ⁵ After calling for each one of his employer’s debtors, he asked the first one, ‘How much do you owe my employer?’ ⁶ That person said, ‘100 batim^c of olive oil.’ So, he told them, ‘Take your document, and quickly sit down and write 50.’ ⁷ Then, he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ They answered, ‘100 korim^d of wheat.’ He told them, ‘Take your document, and write 80.’ ⁸ The employer gave the unjust manager credit for acting cleverly, since the children^e of this age are more clever in dealing with their own kind of people^f than are the children of light.

⁹ “I’m telling you, use wealth—which is gained from injustice^g—to make friends for yourselves so that when it runs out, they’ll welcome you into the tents^h that endure throughout the coming Age.ⁱ ¹⁰ Whoever is faithful in small things is also faithful in big things. ¹¹ So if you haven’t been faithful with wealth—which is gained from injustice—who will entrust you with what’s truly valuable? ¹² If you haven’t been faithful with what belongs to others, who will give you what’s yours? ¹³ No one can be a household servant enslaved to two masters. After all, they will abandon loyalty to^j one and love the other or cling tightly^k to one and regard the other with contempt. You can’t be enslaved both to God and Wealth.”

¹⁴ When the Pharisees—since they were attached to money—heard these things, they scoffed at him. ¹⁵ So, he told them, “You are the ones who present yourselves as just in the eyes of humans, but God knows your hearts. Because what is most highly valued by humans is repulsive in God’s eyes. ¹⁶ The Torah and the Prophets^l were what we had until John.^m Since then, the triumphant messageⁿ of the Reign of God has been announced and everyone is being pressed toward it.^o ¹⁷ But it’s easier for the heavens and the land to pass away than for a single stroke of a letter to fall. ¹⁸ Everyone who sends his wife away and takes another in marriage violates an existing marriage,^p and whoever takes in marriage a woman who has been sent away by her husband violates an existing marriage.

¹⁹ “There was a wealthy person dressed in purple-dyed, fine linen^q who feasted with dazzling grandeur every day. ²⁰ A poor man named Eleazar,^r who was covered in ulcers, had been dumped at his gate, ²¹ and he longed to fill himself^s with what fell from the wealthy person’s table. On top of all that, the dogs would come and lick his sores.

²² “The poor one died, and he was carried by messengers to Abraham’s side.^t The wealthy one also died and was buried. ²³ In the place of the dead,^u when he looked up as he was in anguish,^v he saw Abraham in the distance and Eleazar at his side. ²⁴ He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have compassion for me and send Eleazar to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue because I am in intense pain in this flame!’ ²⁵ But Abraham said, ‘My child, remember that you received your advantages^w in your lifetime, and Eleazar similarly received hardships.^x But now he is comforted here but you are in intense pain. ²⁶ Besides, a huge chasm is fixed between us and you, so those who want to cross from here to you aren’t able, nor can people cross from there to us!’

²⁷ So he said, ‘Then, I beg you, Father: send him to my father’s household ²⁸ to warn my five brothers so that they don’t come to this place of anguish!’ ²⁹ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets!^y They should listen to them!’ ³⁰ But he said, ‘No! Father Abraham, if only someone from among the dead goes to them, they will reorient their minds!’^z ³¹ But Abraham said, ‘If they don’t listen to Moses and the Prophets, they won’t be persuaded even if someone is raised up from among the dead!’”

Footnotes

a The Greek word diaskorpizo literally means scatter, like a farmer scattering seed. It is used here regarding resources and causing the employer’s resources to flow out instead of collecting more wealth. It is the same word used in the previous chapter (Luke 15:13) to describe the lost son scattering his inheritance in the distant land. These seem to be an intentional parallel, as they are the only two places in the Bible this word is used.
b The Greek word kurios carries a number of different meanings. The one people are most familiar with is “Lord.” However, it was a broad term for whoever had authority or status, including Caesar, God, Jesus, a respectful way to address strangers (like “sir” in English), enslavers, and employers. The context here is in an employment arrangement, not slavery: the manager can be dismissed from his position (v. 2) and fears having to dig or beg (v. 3), both of which indicate loss of employment and social standing rather than a change in legal status.
c Batim (sg. bath) were a unit of measure for liquids. There is uncertainty about the exact size, but it seems to have been approximately 6 gallons.
d Korim (sg. kor) was a measurement of volume of both wet and dry goods equal to about 58 gallons.
e Literally, ‘sons,’ but the term huios serves as an idiom here similar to the ‘Sons of Liberty’ from the American Revolution. It is meant to show their alignment or loyalty to ‘this age’ and its values and norms.
f Traditionally, ‘generation.’ It literally means any ‘group of people’ that has a shared characteristic or origin, including gender, lineage, or generation.
g The Greek tou mamōna tēs adikias literally reads “the wealth of injustice.” Most translations render tēs adikias as an attributive genitive, distinguishing one kind of wealth (the dishonest kind) from another (presumably honest wealth). The Greek equally allows—and the context strongly suggests—a genitive of source: wealth comes from injustice. Jesus is naming wealth’s origins in unjust systems and instructing his students to repurpose it toward relationships of solidarity.
h Or “booths” or “tabernacles.” This is a reference to the festival of Sukkot, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles, commemorating the period when the people of Israel wandered the desert for 40 years. The word “tents” or “booths” or “tabernacles” is a reference to the people living in heavy-duty tents as their homes with the house of the Lord being “the Tabernacle” or, before the Tabernacle was built, the “Tent of Meeting,” being a temple made of a structure that could be dismantled and moved but was much more substantial than a modern camping tent. Jesus’s “tents that endure throughout the coming Age” draws on this imagery of God’s dwelling with the people.
i There are several ways aionios can be translated. Traditionally, it’s rendered “eternal” or “everlasting,” but aionios is the adjectival form of aion (“age” or “eon”). It can imply “indefinitely long” or “long-lasting,” without specifying the exact length. Another meaning is describing something as belonging to a particular age. The concept of a coming Age was a central part of Jewish and early Christian teaching, referring to New Creation, the renewal of all things after God’s victory over the world system. In the majority of New Testament occurrences, aionios describes what belongs to that coming Age.
j Traditionally, “hate.” “Abandon loyalty” renders the Greek verb misein, which can include both active hostility and, in many Semitic contexts, the withdrawal or reversal of loyalty. In contexts of competing allegiances or service relationships, this verb regularly signals a reordering of loyalty rather than emotional hatred. The Septuagint uses misein in this comparative way in Genesis 29:30–31 and Deuteronomy 21:15–17, where hated family members are those given diminished status or lower priority. Matthew’s parallel to Luke 14:26 (“loves father or mother more than me,” Matt 10:37) confirms that in sayings of this kind the issue is competing claims of loyalty, not commanded animosity. See BDAG, 653–54, on the sense of miseō as “disfavor” or “love less,” and Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 565–66, for the kinship and allegiance dynamics at work in Luke 14:26, which contains another instance of this word that is relevant for understanding it.
k This seems to be an allusion to Deuteronomy 6:4–5 and Deuteronomy 30:1–20, particularly verse 20. The latter passage says, “To love the Lord your God, to heed His voice, and to cling to Him, for He is your life and your length of days to dwell on the soil which the LORD your God swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them” (Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, 2019). The Greek verb translated here as “cling tightly” is a related, intensified form of the verb the Septuagint translates as “cling to” in Alter’s translation of Deuteronomy 30:20.
l The Torah (Greek: nomos) and the Prophets (Greek: prophetes) is the translation of the names of the first two (and most established by the first century) out of three sections of the Hebrew scriptures—Torah (Hebrew for ‘instruction’) and Nevi’im (Hebrew for ‘prophets’). To this day, the way Jews refer to the Hebrew Bible is TaNaK: T.N.K. = Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim (Hebrew for other ‘writings’).
m The name ‘John’ is the English version of the Latin version of the Greek transliteration (Ioannes) of the Hebrew name Yohanan or in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, Johanan, which means “God has been gracious” or “My God is gracious.”
n The word here is a verb euangelizo, meaning to announce or carry the euangelion, traditionally, translated ‘gospel’ or ‘good news.’ The word ‘gospel’ comes from the Anglo-Saxon term god-spell, which means ‘good story.’ The Greek euangelion literally means ‘good message’ and was used specifically of a message announced publicly, which fits the use of the word ‘news.’ The historical context comes from when rulers and military leaders returned to a city after victory in battle, and a herald would be sent ahead to announce the victory and the ruler’s impending arrival. The writers of the Bible took this word and applied it to Jesus’ victory of a different kind. The use of “triumphant message” here is intended to communicate the full meaning of the word in context and not the narrow dictionary definition.
o The Greek verb biazetai can indicate either middle or passive voice, and in this context is paired with the passive euangelizetai (“is announced”) earlier in the verse. Following Ilaria Ramelli, I’ve rendered it as passive with God as the implied agent: the announcement is universal, and God is pressing everyone toward the Reign. Biazo carries the sense of forceful pressure. The surrounding context makes clear that being pressed toward the Reign does not mean being in it while maintaining stances incompatible with it. The Pharisees (v. 14) are attached to money and scoff at Jesus’s teaching; the Rich Man (vv. 19–31) continues to assume on his wealth and status are what’s valuable even from Hades. God’s pressing is universal, but entry is structurally impossible while one is oppressing, scapegoating, or excluding others. “With God all things are possible” (18:27) means these stances can change.
p Traditionally, “commits adultery.” That English word has come to be associated with sexual shame, which is not the primary focus of the Greek moicheuo. The term focuses on first-century legal status and the violation of a legal marriage agreement. It applied only to a husband being wronged, who was seen as the holder of the agreement. If two unmarried people had sex, it was not moicheia (the noun form). If a married man had sex with an unmarried woman, it was not moicheia. It was moicheia only when a man was wronged because his wife had been used by another man, that is, when his exclusive rights to his wife had been breached. Jesus takes the issue and turns it around, holding the husband accountable for betraying his wife by sending her away. In the surrounding culture, a woman sent away by her husband had no means of providing for herself and was generally condemned to destitution, so dismissing her was not a neutral legal act but an abdication of the husband’s responsibility to provide for her. Jesus redefines the offense entirely.
q Greek porphuran kai busson. Both terms name specific luxury goods, not generic descriptors. Porphura, purple dye, was extracted in tiny quantities from murex sea-snails along the Phoenician coast; producing enough dye for a single garment required thousands of snails, and the resulting cloth was among the most expensive commodities in the Mediterranean economy. Its use was associated with royalty, senatorial rank, and imperial households; in some periods, there were laws restricting who could wear it. Bussos, fine linen, refers to a high-grade woven flax imported largely from Egypt, worn by priests, nobility, and the very wealthy. Pairing the two marks the man not merely as rich but as conspicuously, imperially wealthy, dressed literally like a king in the clearest symbols of power available.
r Traditionally, “Lazarus.” The Greek Lazaros is a shortened form of the Hebrew name Eleazar, meaning “the one whom God helps.” I have chosen to render Hebrew-origin names in their Hebrew forms rather than carrying over the Greek transliteration, so that the Jewishness of the people in these writings remains visible.
s The Greek chortazo means something more specific than simply ‘eat’ and is not the usual word used for eating. It specifically means to fill or satisfy someone. It’s the word used in the beatitudes in Matthew 5:6 “they will be satisfied.” More significantly, it’s the same word used in Luke 15:16 for the lost son longing to fill himself with the carob pods he was feeding to the pigs. Jesus seems to be drawing a direct connect between the lost son and Eleazar here in the description of his destitution and longing for bare necessities to be met.
t Traditionally, ‘Abraham’s bosom.’ The assumption that the place is called “Abraham’s Bosom” is based on a misunderstanding of the cultural context. What is being communicated here is that Eleazar is feasting as Abraham’s guest in the seat of highest honor, seated to Abraham’s right. People in that culture reclined on cushions at U-shaped tables; they did not sit in chairs. When it says Eleazar was in Abraham’s bosom, it means that he was reclining, leaning back toward Abraham’s chest.
u Greek, Hades: the Underworld where all who died were thought to go, regardless of their actions or character in life. Hades in Greek translates the Hebrew Sheol, which held a similar meaning in the Hebrew Bible as a place for the dead. Sometimes translated as “the grave” or “the pit,” it reflects an ancient view of a shared destination after death.
v Traditionally, ‘torment.’ The Greek word basanos originally meant a “touchstone,” a dark stone used by metallurgists to test the purity of gold and silver. From there it extended metaphorically to the testing of persons, claims, and arguments (Plato, Gorgias 486d; Republic 413e), and in Athenian legal practice it became a technical term for judicial interrogation of enslaved people by means of torture because it was assumed they would lie otherwise. By the Hellenistic period, basanos had come to mean “severe suffering,” but it often retained its connection to the function of testing, revealing, or refining. In Wisdom 3:1, the righteous are beyond basanos because they are already proven faithful. In 4 Maccabees, the martyrs’ basanoi reveal and refine their faithfulness. The flame and the thirst in verse 24 belong to this same framework. Scripture regularly pictures fire as a response to wrongdoing as refining rather than destroying (Malachi 3:2–3; 1 Corinthians 3:13–15; 1 Peter 1:7), and the rich man’s thirst is meant to indicate a clear reversal. The man who feasted in dazzling grandeur every day now asks for a drop from the finger of the man he ignored. The rich man’s anguish in this parable is the anguish of seeing. He sees Eleazar across the chasm, sees the reality of the life he lived, and sees the truth his daily feasting disregarded.
w Traditionally, ‘good things’
x Traditionally, ‘bad things’
y This is referring to the Hebrew Bible. The Torah was often referred to as the books of Moses or simply ‘Moses.’ The Torah (Greek: nomos) and the Prophets (Greek: prophetes) is the translation of the names of the first two (and most established by the first century) out of three sections of the Hebrew scriptures—Torah (Hebrew for ‘instruction’) and Nevi’im (Hebrew for ‘prophets’). To this day, the way Jews refer to the Hebrew Bible is TaNaK: T.N.K. = Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim (Hebrew for other ‘writings’).
z The Greek word metanoia is traditionally translated as ‘repent.’ The meaning of metanoia is ‘change the mind’ or ‘transform the mind.’ It does not mean ‘remorse’ or ‘guilt.’ The confusion comes from the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Bible, which used paenitere, which means ‘to be penitent,’ which was a significant shift away from the Greek meaning. The use of ‘reorient’ here reflects the kind of transformation in view, and it also surfaces the Hebraic understanding of the concept that the biblical writers would have had in mind. The Hebrew word traditionally translated as ‘repent’ was shuv, which literally meant ‘turn around’ or ‘turn back.’

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