Sell your possessions and give alms. Provide yourselves with purses that will never wear out, a treasure inexhaustible in Heaven, where no thief can come nor moth consume.
»If you desire to be perfect,« replied Jesus, »go and sell all that you have, and give to the poor, and you shall have wealth in Heaven; and come, follow me.«
»But I charge you, so to use the wealth which is ever tempting to dishonesty as to win friends who, when it fails, shall welcome you to the tents that never perish.«
On receiving this answer Jesus said to him, »There is still one thing wanting in you. Sell everything you possess and give the money to the poor, and you shall have wealth in Heaven; and then come, follow me.«
The reason he said this was not that he cared for the poor, but that he was a thief, and that being in charge of the money-box, he used to steal what was put into it.