Unprofitable servants! Thus speaks the Master of Life and the Conqueror of death:
Can you add one cubit to your stature? Can you make one hair white or black? If then you cannot do the least, why do you take thought for the rest?
The householder who hires servants gives them field and tools and food. How much more does your Heavenly Father provide for His servants!
Unprofitable servants, God gives you the strength to serve;
so it is not you who serve, but God who serves through you.
If you could accomplish one single good service without God, you would be gods, and there would be no God.
If you could kill one single life, and raise one single dead man, without God's presence, you would be gods, and there would be no God.
When you have completed all your service, it is God who has completed His service, and you are unprofitable servants.
I said to my feet: you do not walk by your own strength;
and to my hands: you do not create by your own strength; and to my nerves: you do not feel by your own strength; and to my mind I said: you do not think by your own strength.
Nor can all my watchfulness bring me alive through one single night. Nor can all my lifelong toil give me one meal.
And to the bread I said: it is not you who feed me, but He who made you nourishing. And to the water: it is not you who give me drink, but He who invisibly enters into me with you. And to the light: it is not you who give me light, but He from whom you too borrow.
Sons of men, you are all unprofitable servants.
Elements of nature, you are all unprofitable servants.
Sun, stars, and moons, you are all unprofitable servants.
All your service is in vain, if one stronger than you does not serve.
All your promises are a deception, if one richer than you does not fulfill them.
All your worries are like thorns that you sow along your path. They do not bring down rain, but make the drought yet drier. They add no life, but heap up infirmity.
Unprofitable servants, turn your worries into prayers, as ice turns into flowing water, and you will reap an unexpected harvest. Pray to the Lord of the harvest, and then you will understand how vain and deadly your worries have been.
What use is it for a flute to worry about how it will play? All its worries will produce not a single sound until the player sets his mouth to it.
Count yourselves as nothing; seek no right at all — and everything will be given to you.
And when you do this, you will feel that you are ceasing to be unprofitable servants and becoming sons and envoys of the Father. And the Father will clothe you in the gold and scarlet of His glory.