12. Jesus knew that the people thought this, so he told them this story: “A very important man was preparing to go to a country far away to be made a king. Then he planned to return home and rule his people.
13. So the man called ten of his servants together. He gave a bag of money to each servant. He said, ‘Do business with this money till I get back.’
14. But the people in the kingdom hated the man. So they sent a group to follow him and say, ‘We don’t want this man to be our king!’
15. “But the man became king. When he came home, he said, ‘Call those servants who have my money. I want to know how much they earned with it.’
16. “The first servant came and said, ‘Sir, I earned ten bags of money with the one bag you gave me!’
17. The king said to the servant, ‘Fine! You are a good servant. I see that I can trust you with small things. So now I will let you rule over ten of my cities.’
18. “The second servant said, ‘Sir, with your one bag of money I earned five bags!’
19. The king said to this servant, ‘You can rule over five cities.’
20. “Then another servant came in. The servant said to the king, ‘Sir, here is your bag of money. I wrapped it in a piece of cloth and hid it.
21. I was afraid of you because you are a hard man. You even take money that you didn’t earn and gather food that you didn’t plant.’
22. Then the king said to the servant, ‘You evil servant! I will use your own words to condemn you. You said that I am a hard man. You said that I even take money that I didn’t earn and gather food that I didn’t plant.