On Naboth 1–43

The story of Naboth is old in time, daily in practice. For who of the rich does not daily covet what belongs to others? Who of the very wealthy does not strive to drive the poor man off his little plot and turn the needy man out of the bounds of his ancestral land? Who is content with his own? Whose rich man's soul is not inflamed by a neighboring property? Not one Ahab, then, was born; but, what is worse, Ahab is born daily and never dies to this world. If one dies, very many rise up. There are more who seize than who lose. Not one poor Naboth was killed; daily Naboth is struck down, daily the poor man is killed. Stricken with this fear, the human race now yields its lands; the poor man emigrates with his little ones, burdened with his children; the wife follows in tears, as though she were following her husband to the pyre. Yet she weeps less who mourns the deaths of her own, because, though she has lost her husband's protection, she keeps his tomb; though she does not keep her children, she does not grieve over them as exiles and does not groan over the hunger of her tender offspring, which is worse than death.

How far, you rich, do you extend your mad desires? Will you alone dwell upon the earth? Why do you cast out the sharer of your nature and claim for yourselves the possession of nature? The earth was founded in common for all, rich and poor: why do you rich claim for yourselves a private right over the soil? Nature, which begets all as poor, knows no rich. For we are not born with clothes, nor begotten with gold and silver. Naked it pours them into the light, needing food, clothing, drink; naked the earth receives back those whom it brought forth; it does not know how to enclose the boundaries of estates within a tomb. A narrow sod is equally enough for the poor and the rich, and the earth, which did not hold the living man's desire, now holds the whole rich man. Nature, then, does not know how to distinguish us when we are born, nor when we die. It creates all alike, it shuts all alike in the bosom of the tomb. Who can tell apart the forms of the dead? Uncover the earth again and, if you can, pick out the rich man. Clear away a mound a little later and, if you recognize him, convict the poor man — unless perhaps by this alone, that

more perishes with the rich man. Silk garments and coverings woven with gold, with which the rich man's body is wrapped, are losses to the living, not helps to the dead. You receive ointment, rich man, and you stink; you lose another's grace and do not gain your own. You leave heirs to quarrel. You leave your heirs a hereditary deposit rather than a willing benefit, so that they fear to diminish and violate what has been left. If the heirs are frugal, they guard it; if luxurious, they squander it. So either you condemn good heirs to perpetual anxiety, or you leave bad ones to condemn your deeds.

But why do you think that while you live you abound in everything? O rich man, you do not know how poor you are, how needy you would seem to yourself, you who call yourself rich. The more you have, the more you seek; and whatever you acquire, you are still in need for yourself. Avarice is inflamed by gain, not quenched. Desire has a kind of steps: the more it has climbed, the more it hastens to higher ones, from which the fall will be heavy for one who slips. This man was more bearable when he had less: in view of his means he sought moderate things; with the increase of his estate came the increase of desire. He does not wish to be degenerate in his wishes, poor in his desires. So he joins two unbearable things at once: he increases the ambitious hope of the rich and does not lay aside the disposition of beggary. Indeed divine Scripture teaches us how wretchedly he is in need, how abjectly he begs.

Ahab was king in Israel, and Naboth a poor man. The one abounded in the wealth of a kingdom, the other possessed the sod of a narrow plot. The poor man coveted nothing of the rich man's possessions; the king seemed to himself to be in need because his poor neighbor had a vineyard. Who, then, seems poor to you? The one who is content with his own, or the one who covets what belongs to another? The one certainly seems poor in means, the other is poor in disposition. A rich disposition does not know how to be in need; abundant means cannot fill the breast of the greedy. And therefore the greedy rich man is in envy of possession and in the complaint of poverty.

But now let us consider the words of Scripture. 'And it came to pass after these words. There was a vineyard of Naboth the Israelite in Israel, beside the house of Ahab king of Samaria. And Ahab spoke to Naboth, saying: Give me your vineyard, and it will be a vegetable garden for me, since it is near my house, and I will give you another vineyard for it. Or if it please you, I will give you money for this vineyard, and it will be a vegetable garden for me. And Naboth said to Ahab: God forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers. And his spirit was troubled, and he slept on his bed and covered his face and did not eat bread.'

Divine Scripture had set forth above that Elisha, when he was poor, left his oxen, ran to Elijah, killed them, distributed them to the people, and clung to the prophet. These things were placed first, then, to condemn the rich man described in this king, because, having the benefits of God, as this Ahab did, to whom the Lord gave both the kingdom and rain at the prayer of the prophet Elijah, he violated the divine commands.

Let us hear, then, what he says. 'Give me,' he says. What other voice is that of the needy, what other voice is that of one begging public alms, but 'Give me'? That is: give me, because I am in need. Give me, because I can have no other support for living. Give me, because I have no bread to eat, no coin to drink, no means for food, no resources for clothing. Give me, because the Lord has given you something from which you ought to give, and has not given to me. Give me, because unless you give, I shall not be able to have. Give me, because it is written: 'Give alms.' How abject these things are, how base! For they do not have the disposition of humility, but the fire of desire. And in this very abasement, how great an impudence! 'Give me,' he says, 'your vineyard.'

He admits it is another's, so as to demand what is not owed to him. 'And I will give you,' he says, 'another vineyard for it.' The rich man disdains what is his own as cheap and covets what belongs to another as most precious.

'Or if it please you, I will give you money.' He quickly corrects his error by offering money for the vineyard; for he who desires to take up everything with his own possessions wants the other to possess nothing.

'And it will be a vegetable garden for me,' he says. This, then, was all the madness, this all the fury: that space was sought for cheap vegetables. So you do not so much desire to possess something useful yourselves as to shut others out. You care more about the spoils of the poor than about your own profits. You think it an injury to you if the poor man has anything that is thought worthy of a rich man's possession. You believe that whatever belongs to another is your loss. Why do the losses of nature delight you? The world was created for all, which you few rich try to claim for yourselves. For not only the possession of the earth but heaven itself, the air, the sea are claimed for the use of a few rich men. This air, which you enclose in your far-flung estates, how many peoples it can feed! Do the angels have divided spaces of heaven, as you mark off the earth with boundaries set?

The prophet cries: 'Woe to those who join house to house and estate to estate,' and he rebukes them for an ineffective avarice. For they flee living with men and therefore shut out their neighbors; but they cannot flee, because when they have shut out these, they find others again, and when they have driven those away, they must come to the neighborhood of others; for they cannot dwell alone upon the earth. Birds associate with birds; indeed the sky is often covered by the flight of a huge flock; cattle join cattle, fish join fish, and they think it not a loss but a commerce of living when they take up a very large company, and they seek a kind of protection in the comfort of a more numerous society. You alone, O man, shut out your fellow and shut in wild beasts; you build dwellings for beasts and destroy those of men; you bring the sea within your estates so that sea creatures may not be lacking; you extend the boundaries of your land so that you may have no neighbor.

We have heard the voice of the rich man seeking what belongs to others; let us hear the voice of the poor man claiming his own: 'God forbid,' he says, 'that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers.' He thinks the rich man's money a kind of contagion, as if to say: 'Your money perish with you; but I cannot sell the inheritance of my fathers.' You have an example to follow, rich man, if you are wise: not to sell your field for a harlot's night, not to transfer your right for the expense of revelry and the costs of delicacies, not to forfeit your house at a game of dice, lest you lose the right of inherited piety.

When he heard these things, the spirit of the greedy king was troubled. 'And he slept on his bed and covered his face and did not eat his bread.' The rich mourn if they cannot plunder what belongs to others; if a poor man does not yield his means, they cannot hide the force of their grief. They wish to sleep, they cover their face, so as not to see anything in the world that belongs to another, so as not to know that anything in this world is not theirs, so as not to hear that a neighbor beside them possesses anything, so as not to hear a poor man contradicting them. Theirs are the souls to whom the prophet says: 'Rich women, arise.'

'And he did not eat,' it says, 'his bread,' because he was seeking another's; for the rich eat another's bread rather than their own, living by robbery and maintaining their expenses by plunder. Or certainly he did not eat his bread because he wished to punish himself with death, since something had been denied him.

Compare now the disposition of the poor man. He has nothing, and he does not know how to fast voluntarily except for God; he knows fasting only from necessity. You snatch everything from the poor, you take away all, you leave nothing; yet it is you, the rich, who rather bear the punishment of the poor. They fast if they have nothing; you, when you have. You exact punishment, then, from yourselves before you inflict it on the poor. So by your disposition you pay the hardships of wretched poverty; and the poor indeed have nothing to use, but you neither use it yourselves nor let others use it. You dig gold out of the veins of the mine and hide it again.

How many lives you bury in that gold! For whom are these things kept, when you have read of the greedy rich man: 'He stores up treasures and does not know for whom he gathers them'? The idle heir waits; the disdainful heir complains that you are slow to die. He hates the increase of his inheritance; he hurries to losses. What, then, is more wretched, when you do not even leave gratitude with the one for whom you labor? For him you endure gloomy hunger all your days, fearing the daily losses of your table; for him you deck out daily fasts.

I myself have known a rich man who, setting out for the country, used to count the smaller loaves brought from the city, so that by the number of loaves it could be reckoned how many days he would be in the country. He would not open the sealed granary, lest anything be taken from his store. One loaf was assigned to a day, which could scarcely satisfy the stingy man. I have also learned on reliable authority that if ever an egg was set before him, he complained that a chick had been killed. I write this so that you may know that the justice of God is an avenger, which avenges the tears of the poor by your fasting.

How devout a fast it would be if you assigned the cost of your banquet to the poor! That rich man was more bearable from whose table the poor man Lazarus gathered what fell, longing to be filled; yet even his table was made up of the blood of many poor people, and his cups dripped with the gore of many whom he had driven to the noose.

How many are killed so that what delights you may be prepared! Deadly is your hunger, deadly your luxury. One falls from the highest roofs while preparing large storehouses for your grain. One falls from the lofty top of a tall tree while searching out kinds of grapes to bring, from which wines worthy of your banquet may be poured. One is drowned in the sea, while he fears that fish or oysters may be lacking to your table. One freezes stiff in the winter cold while tracking hares or trying to catch birds with snares. One, before your eyes, if something has perhaps displeased you, is beaten to death and sprinkles the very dishes with his shed blood. Indeed it was a rich man who ordered the head of a poor prophet to be brought to him at table, and found no other way to pay a dancing girl's reward than to order a poor man to be killed.

I myself have seen a poor man led away, being compelled to pay what he did not have, dragged to prison because wine was lacking at a powerful man's table, putting his sons up for auction so that he might postpone his punishment for a time. Perhaps someone was found to help in that necessity. The poor man returns to his lodging with his family, seeing everything plundered, nothing left him for food, groaning at his sons' hunger, grieving that he had not rather sold them to someone who could feed them. He returns to his plan; he takes the decision to sell. Yet the injury of want and the grace of fatherly love fought each other: hunger pressed toward the price, nature toward duty. Ready to die with his sons rather than be separated from them, he often stepped forward, often drew back. Yet necessity conquered, not will, and love itself yielded to necessity.

Let us consider now the storms of a father's mind, seething over which of his children he should hand over first. 'Which,' he says, 'shall I sell first? For I know that the price of one is not enough to feed the rest. This alone is what fruitfulness is rich in — hardship! Whom shall I offer? Whom will the grain auctioneer look on gladly? I will offer the firstborn. But he first called me father. He is the eldest of the sons, whom I fittingly honor as the senior. But I will give the youngest. But I embrace him with a tenderer love. The one I am ashamed before, this one I pity; I sigh over the rank of the one, the age of the other; the one already feels the hardship, this one does not know it; the one's pain moves me, the other's ignorance. I will turn to the others. One flatters me more, another is more modest; one is more like his parent, another more useful; in the one I sell my image, in the other I betray my hope. Wretched me, I do not find what to do, I have nothing to choose. The faces of calamities, a chorus of hardships, wall me round. It is the madness of a wild beast to choose which one to hand over.'

'Even wild beasts, when they sense danger threatening their young and themselves, usually choose which to save, not which to offer. How, then, shall I set aside the affection of nature, how forget, how put off a father's mind? How shall I set up the auction of my son, with what words bargain over the price, into what hands hand over my son into slavery, with what eyes look on him serving, with what kisses say farewell as he departs, with what words excuse the deed? My son, I sold you for my food. The poor man's table, then, is now more deadly than the rich man's. He consigns others; I sell my own. He imposes necessity; I bring my will. To make the cause more excusable, I will add: My son, you will serve for your brothers, so that food may be sought for them. Joseph too, sold into slavery by his brothers, afterward fed both them and his father. He will answer: But his father did not sell him, but wept for him lost; and afterward he himself came into the power of a rich man and could scarcely be freed; afterward his race served the riches of Egypt for a long age. Sell me last, father, on condition that the rich do not buy me.'

'I have hesitated, I confess; but what shall I do? I will sell none. But while I consider one, I shall see all perishing from hunger. If I hand over one, with what eyes shall I see the others, suspicious of my impiety, lest I sell them too? With what shame shall I return home, how shall I go in, with what feeling shall I dwell there, I who have denied myself a son whom no disease consumed, no death took away? With what conscience shall I look on my table, which so many sons surrounded like young olive shoots?'

The poor man laments these things in your presence, and avarice stops your ear, and your mind is not softened by horror at the pitiable deed. The whole people groans, and you alone, rich man, are not moved, nor do you hear the Scripture saying: 'Lose money for the sake of a brother and friend, and do not hide it under a stone to perish.' And because you do not hear, Ecclesiastes therefore cries out, saying: 'There is a grievous sickness which I have seen under the sun: riches kept to the harm of their owner.' But perhaps you return home and confer with your wife, and she urges you to redeem the one sold. Rather, she will urge you to contribute women's adornment, from which you could free the poor man even with a little. She will impose on you the necessity of expenses, so that she may drink from a jewel, sleep in purple, recline on a silver couch, load her hands with gold and her neck with necklaces.

Women delight even in fetters, provided they are bound with gold. They do not think them burdens if they are precious, they do not consider them chains if treasure gleams in them. Even wounds delight them, so that gold may be inserted in their ears and pearls hang there. Gems too have their weights, garments too their chills. They sweat in gems, they shiver in silks; yet the prices please, and avarice commends what nature turns away from. Emeralds and jacinths, beryl, agate, topaz, amethyst, jasper, sardius they seek with the utmost frenzy. Even if half an estate is asked, they do not spare the expense while they indulge their desire. I do not deny that these stones have a certain pleasing brilliance, but they are stones nonetheless. And they themselves, polished against nature so as to lay aside the roughness of rocks, admonish that the hardness of the mind should rather be polished.

What craftsman has been able to add one day to a man's life? Whom have riches redeemed from hell? Whose sickness has money relieved? 'His life is not in abundance,' it says. And elsewhere: 'Treasures profit the unjust nothing, but righteousness frees from death.' Rightly David cries: 'If riches flow, do not set your heart on them.' For what do they profit me if they cannot free me from death? What do they profit me if they cannot be with me after death? They are gained here, they are left here. We speak, then, of a dream, not an estate. Hence the same prophet says well of the rich: 'They slept their sleep, and all the men of riches found nothing in their hands'; that is: the rich who gave nothing to the poor found nothing in their works. They helped no one's want; they could find nothing that profited themselves.

Consider the very name. The pagans call the ruler of the underworld, the arbiter of death, Dis. They call him dis, as also the rich man (diues), because the rich man knows how to bring nothing but death, he to whom belongs a kingdom over the dead, whose seat is in hell. For what is a rich man but an insatiable whirlpool of riches, an insatiable hunger or thirst for gold? The more he has drunk, the more he burns. 'He who loves silver,' it says, 'will not be satisfied with silver,' and further on: 'And this indeed is a very grievous sickness; for as he came, so he went, and his abundance labors for the wind. And all his days are in darkness and grief and much anger and sickness and wrath'; so that the condition of slaves is more bearable; for they serve men, he serves sin; for 'whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.' Always in snares, always in chains, never free of fetters, because always in crimes. How wretched a slavery, to be a slave to sins!

He does not know the duties of nature itself, nor does he know the alternations of sleep or enjoy the sweetness of food, he whose slavery has no exemption; for 'sweet is the sleep of the servant, whether he eats little or much; but for one sated with riches there is none who lets him sleep.' Desire wakes him, the sleepless care of seizing others' goods harries him, envy tortures him, delay vexes him, barren failure of harvests disturbs him, abundance troubles him. Hence to that rich man whose land brought forth abundant fruits, who thought within himself, saying: 'What shall I do, since I have nowhere to gather my fruits?' And he said: 'This I will do: I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will gather all that has grown for me, and I will say to my soul: Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years: rest, eat, drink, feast'; God answered: 'Fool, this night they demand your soul from you; and what you have prepared, whose will it be?' Not even God himself lets him sleep.

He interrupts him as he thinks, he wakes him as he sleeps. But neither does the man let himself be quiet, who is troubled by abundance and in plenty of fruits utters the voice of one in need. 'What shall I do?' he says. Is not this the voice of a poor man, who has no means of living? Lacking everything, he looks here and there, searches his lodging, finds nothing for food. He considers that nothing is more wretched than to be worn out by hunger and to die for want of food; he seeks short cuts to death and searches out more bearable punishments of dying; he seizes a sword, hangs up a noose, kindles a fire, tries poison. And amid these, doubtful what to choose, he says: 'What shall I do?' Then, called back by the sweetness of this life, he wishes to recall his decision, if he can find the means of living. He looks at everything bare, everything empty. He says: 'What shall I do? Where can I get food, where clothing? I want to live, if I have the means to sustain this life; but with what food, with what supplies?' 'What shall I do,' he says, 'since I do not have?'

The rich man cries that he does not have: this is the speech of poverty; abounding in fruits, he complains of want. 'I have nowhere,' he says, 'to gather my fruits.' You would think he was saying: 'I have no fruits on which to live.' Is he happy who is endangered by abundance? Rather this man is more wretched in his fruitfulness than the poor man, whose danger comes from need. That one has something to excuse his hardship; he has injury, certainly, not guilt; this one has no one to accuse but himself.

'And he said: This I will do: I will pull down my barns.' You would think he was still going to say: 'I will open my barns; let those come in who cannot bear hunger; let the needy come, let the poor enter, let them fill their laps. I will pull down the walls that shut out the hungry. Why should I hide what God makes abound for me to give? Why should I shut up with the bars of doors grain with which God has filled the whole circuit of the fields, which grows without a guard and abounds?'

The hope of the greedy man is defeated; the old barns burst with new harvests. 'I had less, and I kept it in vain; more has grown. For whom do I gather? While I hunted for rising prices, I lost the use of kindnesses. How many souls of the poor could I have saved with last year's grain? These prices would delight me more, which are valued not in money but in grace. I will imitate holy Joseph in proclaiming humanity; I will cry with a loud voice: Come, you poor, eat my bread, open your lap, receive grain.' The fruitfulness of the rich man, the abundance of the whole world, ought to be the fertility of all. But you do not say this; you say: 'I will pull down my barns.' Rightly you pull down those from which no poor man returns laden. Barns are receptacles of iniquity, not supports of piety. Rightly he pulls them down, because he does not know how to build wisely. The rich man who does not know eternal things pulls down his own; he pulls down his barns, who does not know how to divide his grain, but only how to shut it up.

'And I will make bigger ones,' he says. Unhappy man, at least distribute to the poor what you spend on the cost of building. While you flee the grace of generosity, you pay the losses of building.

And he added: 'There I will gather all that has grown for me, and I will say to my soul: My soul, you have many goods.' The greedy man is always worn out by the abundance of harvests, while he calculates the cheapness of food. For fruitfulness belongs to all; barrenness is profitable only to the greedy man. He delights more in the enormity of prices than in the abundance of supplies, and prefers to have what he alone sells rather than what he sells with everyone. See him afraid lest the heap of grain overflow, lest, running over the barns, it pass to the poor and some occasion of good be gained for the needy. He claims the produce of the earth for himself alone, not to use it himself but to deny it to others.

'You have,' he says, 'many goods.' The greedy man does not know how to call anything goods except what is profitable. But I agree with him that monetary things may be called goods. Why, then, do you make evils out of goods, when you ought to make goods out of evils? For it is written: 'Make friends for yourselves by the mammon of iniquity.' To one who knows how to use them, then, they are goods; to one who does not know how, rightly evils. 'He has scattered, he has given to the poor; his righteousness remains forever.' What is better than this? They are goods if you give to the poor, by which you make God your debtor by a kind of lending of piety. They are goods if you open the barns of your righteousness, so that you may be the bread of the poor, the life of the needy, the eye of the blind, the father of orphaned children.

You have the means to do it; what do you fear? I meet you with your own words. 'You have many goods laid up for many years': you can abound both for yourself and for others; you have a public fruitfulness: why do you pull down your barns? I will show you where you may better keep your grain, where you may fence it well, so that thieves cannot take it from you. Shut it in the hearts of the poor, where no weevil consumes it, no age spoils it. You have as storehouses the laps of the needy, you have as storehouses the houses of widows, you have as storehouses the mouths of infants, so that it may be said to you: 'Out of the mouth of infants and sucklings you have perfected praise.' These are the storehouses that remain forever, these the barns which future fruitfulness will not pull down. For what will you do again if more grows for you next year? You will pull down again those which you now prepare to make and will make bigger ones. For God gives you fruitfulness so that it may either overcome or condemn your avarice, so that you can have no excuse; but you keep for yourself alone what he wished to grow through you for many, or rather you take it from yourself; for you would keep it better for yourself if you shared it with others; for the fruits of good gifts return to those who bestowed them, and the grace of generosity returns to its author. Indeed it is written: 'Sow for yourselves unto righteousness.' Be a spiritual farmer; sow what will profit you. Good is the sowing in the hearts of widows. If the earth gives you back richer fruits than it received, how much more will the reward of mercy give back manifold what you have given!

Then, O man, do you not know that the day of death comes before the earth's produce, but mercy shuts out the onset of death? Already those are standing by who demand back your soul, and you still put off the fruits of your works, you still measure out long times of living for yourself? 'Fool, this night they demand your soul from you.' He says well 'night.' At night the soul of the greedy man is demanded back: it begins from darkness and continues in darkness. For the greedy man it is always night; for the just man day, to whom it is said: 'Truly, truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.' 'The fool changes like the moon,' but 'the just will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.' Rightly he is convicted of folly who has placed his hope in eating and drinking. And therefore the time of death presses on him, according to what is said by those who serve the belly: 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die.' Rightly he is called a fool who supplies bodily things to his soul, because he stores up what he does not know for whom he keeps.

And therefore it is said to him: 'And what you have prepared, whose will it be?' Why do you daily measure and count and seal? Why weigh gold, weigh silver? How much better it is to be a generous steward than an anxious guard! How much more it would profit you for grace to be called the father of many orphans than to have countless coins sealed in a bag! For money is left here; grace is carried with us to the judge of merit.

But perhaps you say what you are accustomed to say commonly: 'We ought not to give to one whom God has so cursed that he willed him to be in need.' But the poor are not cursed, since it is written: 'Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' Scripture speaks not of the poor man but of the rich man: 'He who hoards up the price of grain will be cursed.' Then, do not ask what each deserves. Mercy is not accustomed to judge of merits but to relieve needs, to help the poor man, not to examine his righteousness; for it is written: 'Blessed is he who considers the needy and the poor.' Who is it who considers? He who has compassion on him, who notices that he is a sharer of his nature, who knows that the Lord made both rich and poor, who knows that he sanctifies his fruits if he sets aside some portion of them for the poor. So since you have the means to do good, do not put it off, saying: 'Tomorrow I will give,' lest you lose the opportunity of giving. Delay about another's life is dangerous; it may be that while you put off, he dies. Rather, run ahead of death, lest perhaps avarice hinder you tomorrow too and your promises be cheated.

But why should I tell you not to put off generosity? Would that you did not hasten to robbery, would that you did not extort what you have coveted, would that you did not seek what belongs to another! Pass over what has been denied, bear patiently what has been excused; do not listen to that Jezebel, which is avarice, saying with a kind of flood of vanity: 'I will give you the property you desire. You are sad because you wish to consider the measure of justice, so as not to snatch what belongs to another: I have my own rights, I have my own laws. I will bring false charges so as to despoil, and so that the poor man's property may be snatched, his life will be attacked.'

For what else is described in that story but the avarice of the rich, which is a vain flood that sweeps everything away like a river and carries it off to profit no use? This is not one Jezebel but many, not of one time but of very many times. She says to all, as that one said to her husband Ahab:

'Rise, eat bread, and return to yourself. I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Israelite.' 'And she wrote a letter in Ahab's name and sealed it with his ring and sent the letter to the elders and to the free men who lived with Naboth. And it was written in the letter: Proclaim a fast and set Naboth at the head of the people, and set two men, sons of iniquity, opposite him, to bear false witness against him, saying: He blessed God and the king; and bring him out and stone him.'