Living in a Foreign City

He said to me, “You know that you who are God’s servants are living in a foreign country. Your own city is far away from this one. So if you know your city, the one you are going to live in, why do you prepare fields here, and costly furnishings, and buildings, and rooms that will come to nothing? Whoever prepares such things for this city has no way back to his own. [a]

“You foolish, double-minded, miserable man! Do you not understand that all these things belong to someone else and are under another man’s authority? For the lord of this city is going to say to you, ‘I do not want you living in my city. Get out of this city, because you do not keep my laws.’ So then: you have fields and houses and a great deal of other property — when he throws you out, what will you do with your field and your house and everything else you laid up for yourself? For the lord of this country tells you, and he is within his rights, ‘Either keep my laws or clear out of my country.’

“So what are you going to do? You have a law in your own city. For the sake of your fields and the rest of your property, will you deny your own law outright and live by the law of this city? Watch out, in case denying your law does you harm. For if you then want to come back to your own city, you will not be let in; you will be shut out of it, because you denied the law of your city.

“So watch yourself. As a man living in a foreign country, prepare nothing more for yourself than enough to get by on. Be ready, so that when the master of this city decides to throw you out for setting yourself against his law, you can walk out of his city and go away to your own, and live by your own law with great joy and with no one to insult you.

“So watch, all of you who serve the Lord and have him in your heart. Do the works of God, remembering his commands and the promises he promised, and trust him that he will carry them out, if his commands are kept.

“So instead of fields, buy souls in distress, as each of you is able. Look after widows and orphans, and do not overlook them. Spend your wealth and all your furnishings — which you received from God — on fields and houses of that kind. This is why the Master made you rich: so that you would carry out these services for him. It is much better to buy fields like these, and property, and houses; you will find them in your own city when you come home to it.

“That is fine spending, and holy. It carries no grief and no fear, but joy. So do not go in for the lavish spending of the nations; it does you harm, since you are God’s servants. Practice your own kind of lavish spending, the kind you can be glad in. And do not falsify anything, and do not touch what belongs to someone else, and do not crave it, for craving what belongs to others is an evil thing. Do your own work, and you will be saved.”