Reading Luke 16 as a literary unity brings the two parables (the Rogue Steward and the Rich Man and Lazarus) together in such a way that the fixity expressed in the latter serves as a perfect foil to the decisive action, in the matter of wealth, taken in the former. The intermediate sayings (vv 14-18) serve this overall instruction about wealth, with v 16 as pivot of the whole: the Rogue Steward who takes ‘violent' action against his own inclination is ultimately the faithful steward in an unequal world.