A rich man and a poor man were neighbors, and one day the rich man heard the poor man, praying to God, asking:
- God, please give me a thousand birr (the main currency in Ethiopia), but if you give me one less birr, I will not take it.
Then the rich man put nine hundred and ninety-nine birrs in the bag and, to see what the poor man would do, threw the bag to the poor man at night.
The money clattered to the floor. Then the poor man counted the money and found that one birr was missing. He hid the money and said:
- Nothing. Tomorrow he will add another birr for me.
After this the rich man said to the poor man:
- I threw you the money. I heard you say that if one birr is missing, you will not take the money, so I decided to test you. Now give me my money back.
And the poor man answers him:
- This is my money, and I won’t give it away.
Then the rich man invited the poor man to go with him to the judge. And the poor man says to him:
— I'm ready to go, but I don't have clothes. Give me some clothes.
And the rich man decided that it was better to give him clothes and persuade him to appear before the judge than to lose a thousand birr. So he bought clothes for the poor man and, when he was dressed, he took him to the judge.
When they came to the judge, the rich man began to tell how it all happened:
“I heard this poor man praying and asking God to give him a thousand birrs.” He said that if one birr was not enough, he would not take the money. So I decided to try it out. I threw a bag of money into his house, in which one thousand birrs was missing. He counted the money and, seeing that one birr was short of a thousand birr, he hid the money, saying: “Tomorrow he will add more to me.” But I did it in order to test it. God didn't actually drop money from heaven to him. When I asked him to return my money to me, he said that he would not give it back.
The judge asked the poor man:
- Is he telling the truth?
And the poor man answered:
- What are you talking about, Mr. Judge! Don't trust him. He will also say that these clothes also belong to him.
The rich man did not let him finish and shouted:
“Now, maybe you’ll say that I didn’t buy these clothes for you either?”
Then the judge said to the rich man:
- What kind of nonsense are you talking about! Now you are already saying that his clothes also belong to you. It is clear that your accusation is false.
And the judge ruled in favor of the poor man.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru