s
and ate the best food in the land. And he thought of a poor beggar who
sat all day long outside the rich man's house. His body was covered
with sores, and he was so hungry that he would have been glad to get
the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table. But the only friends
he had were the dogs that came and licked his sores.

Jesus continued, in a stern voice:

"Woe to you who are rich! For you have already had everything you are
ever going to have! Woe to you who are well-fed! The time is coming
when you will go hungry. Woe to you who are enjoying yourselves all
the time! Someday you will weep. Woe to you when everyone speaks well
of you! It is easy to be popular if you aren't faithful to God. That's
the way it has always been."

Jesus knew that all of them were too much interested in the things
that money could buy. They wanted the Messiah to come so that he would
make them all rich. And so Jesus said, to show them where they were
wrong:

"Don't be always thinking about what you are going to eat and drink
and wear. Why, that's the kind of thing the Romans worry about. There
is more to life than food and clothing."

He paused for a moment. It was a warm summer day. The birds were
flying overhead, and singing; and up the hillside the wild flowers
made patches of color in the grass. Jesus spoke again:

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

"Look at the birds of the air. They never plant crops, or reap
harvests, or gather the grain into barns. Yet your Heavenly Father
feeds them. Are you not more important than birds? Think of the lilies
of the field, how they grow. They never yet made any clothes for
themselves, and yet the great King Solomon in all his glory was not so
beautifully clothed as one of these little flowers. You people who
have so little faith in God--think! If God clothes the flowers of the
field, which are here today and gone tomorrow, will he not clothe you?
Seek the Kingdom of God first of all, and you will be given all the
food and clothes you need. Never worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will
look after itself when it comes. Think about how you ought to live
today."

There was another weakness that Jesus had seen in people, especially
in the Pharisees. They loved to show off their good deeds. He had to
speak about this too.

"When you give something to the poor," he said, "don't make a great
noise about it, like some people I could mention, who want to impress
everybody with how generous the