For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. By craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.

For it is just like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted them with his possessions. To one he gave five talents, to another two talents, and to another one talent—each according to his own ability. And he went on his journey. The servant who had received the five talents went at once and put them to work and gained five more. Likewise, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the servant who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground, and hid his master’s money. . . .

She appraises a field and buys it; from her earnings she plants a vineyard.

She sees that her gain is good, and her lamp is not extinguished at night.

Now in those days, when there was no king in Israel, a Levite who lived in the remote hill country of Ephraim took for himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah. But she was unfaithful to him and left him to return to her father’s house in Bethlehem in Judah. After she had been there four months, her husband got up and went after her to speak kindly to her and bring her back, taking his servant and a pair of donkeys. So the girl brought him into her father’s house, and when her father saw him, he gladly welcomed him. His father-in-law, the girl’s father, persuaded him to stay, so he remained with him three days, eating, drinking, and lodging there. On the fourth day, they got up early in the morning and prepared to depart, but the girl’s father said to his son-in-law, “Refresh your heart with a morsel of bread, and then you can go.” . . .