Luke Chapter 16 verse 3 Holy Bible
And the steward said within himself, What shall I do, seeing that my lord taketh away the stewardship from me? I have not strength to dig; to beg I am ashamed.
read chapter 16 in ASV
And the servant said to himself, What am I to do now that my lord takes away my position? I have not enough strength for working in the fields, and I would be shamed if I made requests for money from people in the streets.
read chapter 16 in BBE
And the steward said within himself, What shall I do; for my lord is taking the stewardship from me? I am not able to dig; I am ashamed to beg.
read chapter 16 in DARBY
Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed.
read chapter 16 in KJV
read chapter 16 in WBT
"The manager said within himself, 'What will I do, seeing that my lord is taking away the management position from me? I don't have strength to dig. I am ashamed to beg.
read chapter 16 in WEB
`And the steward said in himself, What shall I do, because my lord doth take away the stewardship from me? to dig I am not able, to beg I am ashamed: --
read chapter 16 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 3. - What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship. This day of dismissal must be prepared for; very carefully, very anxiously, the man who has received the sentence of doom ponders over his future. The lesson of the Master is spoken to all; it is a solemn warning to each of us to see what we can do by way of providing for the inevitable day when we shall find ourselves alone and naked and perhaps friendless in the great, strange world to come. The hero of the parable seems suddenly, after a life of carelessness and thoughtlessness, to have awakened to a sense of his awful danger. So the voice of the real Owner of the goods, which we have so long deluded ourselves into thinking were our own, comes to us, bidding us make ready to give them back again to him, their Owner, and at the same time to render an account of our administration of them. The voice comes to us in the varied forms of conscience, sickness, misfortune, old age, sorrow, and the like; well for us if, when we hear it, we at once determine, as did the steward of the parable, to make a wise use of the goods in our power for the little time they are still left to us to dispose of as we will.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(3) I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed.--In the outer framework of the parable there is something eminently characteristic in this utterance of the steward's thoughts. He has lost the manliness and strength which would have fitted him for actual labour. He retains the false shame which makes him prefer fraud to poverty. He shudders at the thought that it might be his lot to sit, like Lazarus, and ask an alms at the rich man's door. Spiritually, we may see what happens to a religious caste or order, like the Pharisees, when it forfeits its true calling by misuse. It has lost the power to prepare the ground for future fruitfulness by the "digging," which answers, as in Luke 13:8, to the preliminary work of education and other influences that lie outside direct religious activity. It is religious and ecclesiastical, or it is nothing. It is ashamed to confess its spiritual poverty, and to own that it is "poor, and blind, and naked" (Revelation 3:17). Anything seems better than either of those alternatives.
