¹⁷ “Yet your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But it is their way that is not just.

²⁴ “Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. ²⁵ So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’

²⁶ “His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed?

²⁹ Yet the Israelites say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Are my ways unjust, people of Israel? Is it not your ways that are unjust?

²⁵ “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’^(A) Hear, you Israelites: Is my way unjust?^(B) Is it not your ways that are unjust?

²¹ I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.’^(A)

²² “His master replied, ‘I will judge you by your own words,^(B) you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow?^(C)

²⁰ Yet you Israelites say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But I will judge each of you according to your own ways.”^(A)