Excessive greed and the love for the apparent goods can lead man not to prosperity and happiness but to his true ruin, riches are deceitful and dangerous, this is what the Bible warns us about with wisdom, riches are not a goal, but a consequence, a result. That is why the book of Proverbs teaches us with wise words: "Such are the paths of all who go after ill-gotten gain; it takes away the life of those who get it" Proverbs 1:19.
And about this, there is a very interesting story in the Bible, and this is the story of Heliodorus (2 Maccabees 3:1-40), an official of King Seleucus. The story begins with a business dispute between the high priest of the temple in Jerusalem and a certain Simon, administrator of the temple; and because of this conflict, Simon denounced before the governor of the region that the Jerusalem treasury had innumerable riches that could be made available to the King. And so Heliodorus, who was the business manager of King Seleucus, was given the order to confiscate those important treasures.
So Heliodorus arrived in Jerusalem where he communicated to the High Priest the orders of the King, and thus he ordered an inventory of the goods. And when he was next to the treasure with his escort, the Bible tells us, a divine vision appeared to Heliodorus, which left him seriously injured.
Heliodorus recovered from his injuries and so the Bible tells us about the end of his mission, and how he left the riches intact: "After Heliodorus had offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made most solemn vows to the one who had spared his life, he bade Onias farewell, and returned with his soldiers to the king. Before all he gave witness to the deeds of the most high God that the had seen with his own eyes" 2 Maccabees 3:35-36.
Heliodorus in this story was a man greedy for riches, that is to say an idolater, but finally, this person realized that the worship of false goods is a serious sin, and that nothing good comes from this. The search for riches can paradoxically be counterproductive, and as in the case of Heliodorus we can never put our hope in them but in the creator of all things.
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