/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20743060]

Can you be a Christian and a Communist?

[Anonymous No.20743068]

>>20743060
>Nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a Socialist tinge. Has not Christianity declaimed against private property, against marriage, against the State? Has it not preached in the place of these, charity and poverty, celibacy and mortification of the flesh, monastic life and Mother Church? Christian Socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat.
Yes, as a revisionist (which isn't a bad thing, dilate Luxetroons).

[Anonymous No.20743088]

Google "Liberation Theology"

[Anonymous No.20743091]

Yea

[Anonymous No.20743095]

>>20743060
Christianity is inherently socialist. It's just 'christians' today have twisted its original spiritual kernel to: oppress lgbt; oppress women; rape their children etc etc bootlick the state and the police etc etc.

In other words, Christians today are heading straight for hell. Only those who recognize it's radical and socialist core will inherot the Kingdom of Heaven.

[Anonymous No.20743097]

Every country comunism has been implemented has saw a crackdown on its church. Comunism being a materialistic anti hierarchy ideology wouldnt allow people to really be religious

[Anonymous No.20743108]

>>20743060
life style of early church was pretty anarcho-communist. you can find it from the book of acts

[Anonymous No.20743109]

>>20743097
See what comunists did in albania, an islamic country. They dont allow true religion
>>20743095
Stfu tranny, you dont know shit

[Anonymous No.20743118]

>>20743108
Yeah 200 ad christians where very (19 century ideology invented by an atheist jew) -ists.

[Anonymous No.20743123]

>>20743109
>He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.

Remember this, 'christian' (you're not btw, just a larper) the next time you judge a minority group. Heaven WILL repel you.

[Anonymous No.20743130]

>>20743123
I am not a christian but i believe in god and i noticed that religion is simply not compatible with comunism. And you are just baiting

[Anonymous No.20743134]

>>20743109
>There is neither man nor woman...
inb4. some bullshit cope like "ACKCHUALLY YOU'RE INTERPRETING THAT VERSE WRONG IT ACTUALLY SAYS FUCK NIGGERS" as is standard for all Christnigger arguments
neck yourself

[Anonymous No.20743140]

>>20743118
>200 ad christians
had a good deal of kikes among them

[Anonymous No.20743144]

>>20743130
>religion

No, Christianity and Communism are entirely compatible. In fact, Christianity was the earliest vision of a communal utopia before the sociological/economic terminology was developed in the 19th century. All you have to do is read the New Testament to see kek. Or read Dosto, he fleshes this out as well.

[Anonymous No.20743145]

>>20743109
I will pray for you.

[Anonymous No.20743156]

>>20743095
The same homophobic Christianity since Paul?

[Anonymous No.20743157]

>>20743118
no, i meant they invented it about two thousand years earlier

[Anonymous No.20743160]

>>20743060
Yes. I don't know about communism necessary but quite a few of the economically centre-left or left wing European parties have been Christian, like christian social democrats or christian socialists. I'm not so sure about more radical left wing movement though, Marx wasn't opposed to personal religion but he didn't like institutionalized religion, it may work as a revisionist movement. Others already talked about Liberation Theology

[Anonymous No.20743170]

>>20743144
>>20743157
>living in a closed sharing comunity = early comunism
If by that definition the amish are the leading comunists of this world. As if christians didnt have a hierarchy. Just shut up dude

[Anonymous No.20743176]

>>20743160
Christians shouldnt be in politics anyway, for their country is not from this world. And leftist ideology does nothing but get in the way of what they believe. In general the left is anti religion

[Anonymous No.20743184]

Look at every single left or even liberal leaning church ever and it's no coincidence that those people are just there for the vibes (or subversion, even) and don't care about doctrine that isn't the latest twitterbrained social mores. These ideologies lead a path straight to atheism and intentional dismantling of church traditions for the social justice points.

I'm not even a christcuck but the type of left christianity espoused by so many of these people is so disingenuous that half of them have to be fucking trolling and don't even believe in god, no way will I believe "leftist" christians even care about the supernatural at all

[Anonymous No.20743214]

>>20743176
This is a very idealistic opinion though. While this may be true, Christians still live in this world and need to make a living. You can't expect Christians to not vote at all or to just ignore a policy that goes against their believes. Also there are more atheists and progressivist in the left which may be at odds with Christianity but economically speaking there are not problems.

[Anonymous No.20743275]

>>20743060
"The Christian and the Anarchist.—When the anarchist, as the mouthpiece of the decaying strata of society, raises his voice in splendid indignation for “right,” “justice,” “equal rights,” he is only groaning under the burden of his ignorance, which cannot understand why he actually suffers,—what his poverty consists of—the poverty of life. An instinct of causality is active in him: someone must be responsible for his being so ill at ease. His “splendid indignation” alone relieves him somewhat, it is a pleasure for all poor devils to grumble—it gives them a little intoxicating sensation of power. The very act of complaining, the mere fact that one bewails one’s lot, may lend such a charm to life that on that account alone, one is ready to endure it. There is a small dose of revenge in every lamentation. One casts one’s afflictions, and, under certain circumstances, even one’s baseness, in the teeth of those who are different, as if their condition were an injustice, an *iniquitous* privilege. “Since I am a *blackguard* you ought to be one too.” It is upon such reasoning that revolutions are based.—To bewail one’s lot is always despicable: it is always the outcome of weakness. Whether one ascribes one’s afflictions to others or to *one’s self*, it is all the same. The socialist does the former, the Christian, for instance, does the latter. That which is common to both attitudes, or rather that which is equally ignoble in them both, is the fact that somebody must be to *blame* if one suffers—in short that the sufferer drugs himself with the honey of revenge to allay his anguish. The objects towards which this lust of vengeance, like a lust of pleasure, are directed, are purely accidental causes. In all directions the sufferer finds reasons for cooling his petty passion for revenge. If he is a Christian, I repeat, he finds these reasons in himself. The Christian and the Anarchist—both are decadents. But even when the Christian condemns, slanders, and sullies the world, he is actuated by precisely the same instinct as that which leads the socialistic workman to curse, calumniate and cast dirt at society. The last “Judgment” itself is still the sweetest solace to revenge—revolution, as the socialistic workman expects it, only thought of as a little more remote.... The notion of a “Beyond,” as well—why a Beyond, if it be not a means of splashing mud over a “Here,” over this world? ..."

[Anonymous No.20743295]

>>20743060
>"Nothing is easier than giving Christian asceticism a Socialist tinge."
-- Marx and Engels

Well, I dunno, but I think the answer is probably yeah it's possible and mentally purging yourself of all religion to be a Marxist seems chauvinistic. But I don't think it should be like a shortcut where you make a show about the virtuousness of poverty and suffering, as opposed to being like "we're not taking Jesus seriously enough" and following that through more deeply. In all likelihood, for any religious person, the two beliefs will probably reconcile in some important way.

>>20743184
What's strange about this conversation to me is that I was raised by liberal atheists who are very hostile to religion, but I came to appreciate religion more after learning about Marxism, because Marx described it as like an opiate which relieves suffering, and while he was critical of it, that's in embryo a criticism of what gives rise to the suffering in the first place, and I noticed that I engage in similar kinds of behavior that religious people do, so the decline of religion isn't so much of a decline I feel but people expressing the underlying phenomena in different forms.

Marxism is also at odds with rationalism where "the only thing that's real is what's rational" which is how a lot of "rationalist" and "skeptic" types think. Instead, there's a "dialectical" relationship between one's sense perceptions and logical knowledge. Like you might sense that something is just *wrong* or something but you don't really understand why and those skeptic types will dismiss it because of a lack of empirical data to their suiting. Marxism factors in empirical evidence of course (maybe kinda like "trust but verify") but empiricism seems inherently conservative and pro-status quo as a result.

[Anonymous No.20743307]

>>20743095
Except for “heaven” and “hell” bullshit quite based.

[Anonymous No.20743321]

>>20743097
>wouldnt allow people to really be religious
For the simple reason that religion is a brainwashing apparatus which indoctrinate the masses and turn them into addicts so to speak.

[Anonymous No.20743326]

>>20743060
They’re the same thing

[Anonymous No.20743338]

>>20743060
I don't know, dude... Can you be both a death-cult cultist and a cargo-cultist of the same death-cult?

[Anonymous No.20743342]

>>20743060
Fuck yah brah, Marx *was* a Christian lmao like read actually read him my dude and stop relying on Fabian distortions.

[Anonymous No.20743357]

I think a lot of Western communists can be like (some) "Christians" in all but name, or were in the past before the USSR fell apart. There's a kind of belief that the Promised Land is inevitable and then they argue over the "scripture" like they're holy books.

But it's probably better to think that it -- and by that I mean people breaking from bourgeois ideology en masse and struggling together for a leap into the future -- is not inevitably going to succeed but it's *possible* because it has happened in history. History happens in more like violent leaps, like earthquakes and meteor impacts and revolutions. It's not "hope" that causes people to do this but love and righteous anger and maybe a bit of faith. The communist spirit is about being in the fight as a collective and the front ranks of the struggle which you're not going to get from a "rationalist" point of view.

Reading about Mike Davis, the California Marxist who wrote "City of Quartz." He has terminal cancer. There's an interview with him in the L.A. Times.

>Sam Dean: You’ve decided to stop chemo treatments for your esophageal cancer. What are you thinking about, day to day?

>Mike Davis: First of all, I have plenty of distractions. I read maybe 500 pages a day — military history, exploration — and in the evenings I cuddle with my kids and we watch some crime show.

>I’m a fatalistic Celt, and I have the example of my mother and older sister, who died like Russian soldiers at Stalingrad. I intend to not let [my family] down, to be just as solid as they were. I’m not depressed. The major thing in dying that I was worried about — my father had an especially agonizing death, the trauma of it’s never quite left me — was the thought that it might be so traumatic for my kids that that’s what they remember of me. But thanks to [California’s] aid-in-dying law, I have control over the final act.

>But I guess what I think about the most is that I’m just extraordinarily furious and angry. If I have a regret, it’s not dying in battle or at a barricade as I’ve always romantically imagined — you know, fighting.

https://youtu.be/ISdxQGqaLEc

[Anonymous No.20743362]

>>20743214
>This is a very idealistic opinion though. While this may be true, Christians still live in this world and need to make a living. You can't expect Christians to not vote at all or to just ignore a policy that goes against their believes.
Yeah, thats why they should vote in the right, the only position that historically respected religious belief.
>Also there are more atheists and progressivist in the left which may be at odds with Christianity but economically speaking there are not problems.
Leftism is not just an economic position. The morality goes strictly against what christian believe and leftists make sure to force it on everyone.
>>20743295
> but I came to appreciate religion more after learning about Marxism, because Marx described it as like an opiate which relieves suffering, and while he was critical of it, that's in embryo a criticism of what gives rise to the suffering in the first place, and I noticed that I engage in similar kinds of behavior that religious people do, so the decline of religion isn't so much of a decline I feel but people expressing the underlying phenomena in different forms.
Yeah and in the end you dont really understand religion and just think its good because make people suffering feel better. You still think its fake and would trample it if it got in your way politicaly, admit it.
>Marxism is also at odds with rationalism
But still thinks that religion has no inner value. That people invented them to feel better, a vulgar materialistic understanding of it
>>20743321
You really showed who comunists really are. Your opinion (shared by all comunists) is why there is no leftist christian and why you shouldnt be trusted

[Anonymous No.20743463]

>>20743362
I just spectate and observe how religious people and their “leaders” behave and act, and synthesize an objective hypothesis that conclude their actions and reasoning.

[Anonymous No.20743506]

>>20743123
Doesn’t this mean no one can call us the big bad whites anymore either?

[Anonymous No.20743511]

>>20743184
Why aren’t you a Christian? Do you have other beliefs? It seems from your post you believe in some kind of metaphysics

[Anonymous No.20743532]

>>20743060
no, understanding religious entities as man-made is the key to understanding the fetishes of bourgeois society as man-made. Marx:
>It is nothing but the definite social relation between men themselves which assumes here, for them, the fantastic form of a relation between things. In order, therefore, to find an analogy we must take flight into the misty realm of religion. There the products of the human brain appear as autonomous figures endowed with a life of their own, which enter into relations both with each other and with the human race. So it is in the world of commodities with the products of men’s hands. I call this the fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labour as soon as they are produced as commodities, and is therefore inseparable from the production of commodities.
-
>The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man — state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.
-
>Accepting the relationships of private property as human and rational, political economy operates in permanent contradiction to its basic premise, private property, a contradiction analogous to that of the theologian who continually gives a human interpretation to religious conceptions, and by that very fact comes into constant conflict with his basic premise, the superhuman character of religion.

[Anonymous No.20743534]

>>20743060
No, anybody that tells you otherwise is a jew or a heretic like protestants
>The Decree Against Communism was a 1949 Catholic Church document issued by the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, and approved by Pope Pius XII, which declared Catholics who professed Communist doctrine to be excommunicated as apostates from the Christian faith.
I'll let Marx tell you what he thinks about religion.
>“Communism begins where atheism begins,” said Karl Marx
>“The criticism of religion is the beginning of all criticism,” said Marx. Religion was among the things he wanted to abolish, along with property, family, “all morality” and more.
>As for “social justice” Christians who invoke communism as somehow consistent with Christian social teaching — well, Marx begged to differ. “The social principles of Christianity preach cowardice, self-contempt, abasement, submission, humility,” scowled Marx. “The social principles of Christianity are hypocritical. … So much for the social principles of Christianity.”
>Georg Jung, a Marx contemporary and close friend of his, said that “Marx calls Christianity one of the most immoral religions.” Jung viewed Marx as a theological-philosophical revolutionary who was attempting to overthrow the entire social system, not just an economic system.
>Marx’s partner, Engels, acknowledged that. One contemporary said of Engels: “He held, of course, that Christian socialism was a contradiction in terms.”
>Of course. That was part of the creed of communism. Vladimir Lenin declared that “any worship of a divinity is a necrophilia,” insisted that “there is nothing more abominable than religion,” and demanded: “Everyone must be absolutely free to … be an atheist, which every socialist is, as a rule.”
>Nikolai Bukharin, founding editor of the Soviet-state newspaper Pravda, stated: “A fight to the death must be declared upon religion, take on religion at the tip of the bayonet.” According to Bukharin, “Religion and communism are incompatible, both theoretically and practically. … Communism is incompatible with religious faith.”
These are among the reasons why the Catholic Church described communism as a “satanic scourge” orchestrated by the “sons of darkness.” It spoke likewise of “socialism.”
https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/the-catholic-case-against-communism
Repent and join the one true faith Traditional Catholicism.

[Anonymous No.20743546]

>>20743532
How did Marx get away with calling Lasalle a Jewish nigger when he has the physiognomy of a Papua New Guinean bushman with light (albeit swarthy) skin?

[Anonymous No.20743567]

>>20743060
That is impossible.

[Anonymous No.20743573]

What the fuck does communism have to do with fags and sodomites?

[Anonymous No.20743600]

>>20743546
what do you mean "get away with"? doesn't being jewish and nigger-like himself give him a pass?

[Anonymous No.20743636]

>>20743060
no. You are supposed to be compassionate, which does not work with the communist ethic of killing millions of innocents because they may be not communist enough.

[Anonymous No.20743640]

>>20743060

yeah because communism is a socio-economic system and has nothing to do with religion

[Anonymous No.20743649]

jesus seemed to have advocated for voluntary poverty rather than socialism

[Anonymous No.20743654]

jesus said the poor will be with you always as a response to judas whining about jesus wasting oil on a hooker's feet

that's not something a socialist would say

[Anonymous No.20743655]

>>20743095
b8

[Anonymous No.20743664]

>>20743060
Yea obviously, and the denial of that aspect by fundamentalist Christians has perhaps been one of the most disgusting crimes of history. I can really recommend Tolstoy's Gospel in brief, his very loyal summary that perfectly highlights the communal and anti-hierarchical aspects of Christianity.

[Anonymous No.20744014]

>>20743060
Marxism is incompatible with Christianity, but you should look into Liberation Theology, Distributism, and the Catholic Worker Movement.

[Anonymous No.20744026]

>>20743546
He did it in private, he didn't have the courage to do it otherwise

[Anonymous No.20744329]

>What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call ‘Christianity AND.’ You know––Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New Order, Christianity and Faith Healing, Christianity and Psychical Research, Christianity and Vegetarianism, Christianity and Spelling Reform. If they must be Christians let them at least be Christians with a difference. Substitute for faith itself some Fashion with a Christian colouring.
>Screwtape Letters, Letter 25, CS Lewis
It'll just end up as "Christianity and Communism", where Communism becomes the goal and the Christianity is used as a means to an end. However, I'd argue that Christianity and Communism would be more harmful to Christianity than a lot of the above "Christianity and..."s. Similiar to the "Christianity and Progressivism" types who gladly throw central tenets of Christianity under the bus for a trans bathroom bill, "Christianity and Communism" types seem more than likely to sell out the "Christianity" part in exchange for some minor wins for Communism.

[Anonymous No.20744540]

You can have a movement that's socially conservative and economicaly left wing. Nazbol is the extreme version of this for example, a conservative christian that supports social programs is not that weird. In America politics are not as diverse unfortunate

[Anonymous No.20744541]

>>20743060
Communism will insist on being an atheist ideology, but it's the ideology most explicitly tied to religious thought. Christianity and Communism both totally deny any form of human nature or inborn characteristics. Capitalism, on the other hand, is more in line with Darwinism with its evolutionary and survival of the fittest mentality.

Basically, Communism is the economic form of Christianity, but you can't be a Christian Communist for some reason.

[Anonymous No.20744656]

>>20743060
No, not without sacrificing one or the other. For all intents and purposes, they are mutually exclusive. Socialism requires the needs of the state be of a greater significance to you than the moral obligations of a higher power, since in a socialist system the state is the highest authority.

Likewise, Christianity demands that God be put first. Matthew 6:24 says:

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money."

Replace "money" with "big brother" andyou get your answer.

[Anonymous No.20744674]

>>20743184
They don't. People also don't realize how much the Overton Window has shifted; 99% of the trillions of people who have ever walked the earth would be considered far-right extremists by today's standards, even classical liberals of the 19th century would be called Nazis by today's faggy cult of left-wing nutjobs.

There's a reason the Communist Party of China is cracking down on Christian churches, and why the UK keeps building Muslim mosques but doesn't bat an eye at Christian churches being burned by the hundreds. Communism rejects Christianity because Christianity is inherently resistant to the will of the state when it puts the will of a higher power above all worldly authority.

[Anonymous No.20745201]

>>20743060
It’s called Christian socialism

[Anonymous No.20745224]

>>20744674
>and why the UK keeps building Muslim mosques but doesn't bat an eye at Christian churches being burned by the hundreds.
"The UK" isn't building anything, those are private ventures.
Thirdie poorfags believe in their Allah, the rich and educated Brits have become atheists like everyone else in Europe. That's why churches are declining.

[Anonymous No.20745259]

Marx's entire theory of alienation, which became his theory of proletarian revolution resulting in communism, originally came from the radical atheism and scripture-debunking of the left Hegelians. His "materialism" came from Feuerbach, whose claim to fame was saying that all religion comes from man projecting his own qualities onto exterior divine beings, and that man needs to reabsorb these qualities by realizing they were always really in him all along and there are no divine beings. Marx's encounter with Feuerbachian materialism is what made him formulate Marxist communism in 1843-1848. For Marx, religion, like any other institution or bit of culture, is just an emanation of suffering caused by relations of production. That's why he harps so much on "critiquing the causes of the suffering whose emanation is religion."

So you can't really agree with Marx on much and still be an orthodox Marxist communist. It's a pretty central tenet, at least an avowed tenet, of the Marxism of Marx and Engels that fighting the class war and enacting communism is NOT a MORAL act. It is scientifically inevitable because of the very conditions of the relations of production. Being a "moral" communist was considered utopian and bourgeois, because it was like you were saying "We don't like how things are, so we want to change them to something else" with the something else being an arbitrary figment of your imagining. Marx's theory is explicit that he is describing what is actually, empirically happening, and that the class war and communism are inevitable as a result of it.

Of course it is precisely these ambiguities and over-commitments that made Marxism splinter, and made a lot of Marxists reevaluate their views. So you can, in practice, be a Christian who agrees with the main thrust of Marxism but disagrees with Marx about how morality fits into it. But you could never convince Marx of the permissibility of any divine revelation. His entire epistemology and theory is predicated on the French Enlightenment, ultimately Cartesian idea that nothing "positive" be allowed to dominate man. "Positive" means "posited," as in, merely posited, not confirmed by man's reason. A dogma is by definition something that has not been confirmed and assented to by the individual reason, and a revelation or scripture is by definition something that cannot be confirmed or produced solely by reason, so Marx would never ever accept either.

If you want to be a non-Marxist communist, what Marx called a utopian socialist (like Fourier or Saint-Simon), you have more freedom to pick and choose. But they also tended to be brutally "FUCK YEAH SCIENCE" and believe in rule by super smart businessmen. Saint-Simon was Comte's mentor, and Comte is the one whose totalitarian rationalism horrified John Stuart Mill and made him question his own rationalism.

[Anonymous No.20745264]

>>20743567
take your meds

[Anonymous No.20745265]

>>20743060
No
>inb4 what about latin america
If some people are in a dissolution that doesn't magically make that dissolution right

[Anonymous No.20745267]

>>20743068
>Has not Christianity declaimed against private property, against marriage, against the State?
No? It did the very opposite

[Anonymous No.20745278]

>>20745264
wrong life cannot be lived rightly

[Anonymous No.20745282]

>>20744674
smartest christcuck

[Anonymous No.20745294]

>>20745267
You should learn some history. Medieval Christianity was full of weird communistic revolutionary tendencies that the church often persecuted as heresies. The early church like some other Jewish communities like the Essenes did effectively live in communes, and this is present in the New Testament, and these New Testament sources were constantly returned to by critics of the decadent medieval church at least from the Gregorian reforms onwards. There is a whole literature on these "proto-Protestant," proto-"True Leveller" tendencies. That literature contains substantial contributions by Marxists who, starting with Engels, looked back through history for precursors to communism.

[Anonymous No.20746589]

>>20745264

[Stupid question No.20746862]

>>20743095
Are you from Poland?

[Anonymous No.20746996]

I don't understand why you'd want to mix the two or even have one live comfortably with the other. Communism is, by its definition, a stateless and classless society where the workers own the means of production. If you're still submitting to a non-meritocratic divine being are you not just hoisting up ideology? I think anarchists are mostly children, but I do agree with their mantra of no gods, no masters. We elevate these things and they rule us.

[Anonymous No.20747018]

>>20743060
Yes; in fact, being a Communist is the only way you can truly be a Christian.

[Anonymous No.20747039]

>tfw no Orthodox Christian Marxist gf

[Anonymous No.20747082]

>>20744329
Hey, someone who actually reads.

[Anonymous No.20747150]

>>20743060
No. Communism is a materialist ideology.

[Anonymous No.20747365]

>kill innocents because you think a book told you to
>disparaging of material wealth
>long haired hippy guy with a beard
>everything would be fixed if literally the entire planet agreed with me
>hostility towards dissidents that borders on psychopathic paranoia
Definitely don't see how they're incompatible.

[Anonymous No.20747435]

>>20743060

No
Do you think the cave of the patriarchs in Hebron is private property of Abraham and the patriarchs forever and ever, even if they are dead?

23 Sarah lived to be a hundred and twenty-seven years old. 2 She died at Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep over her.

3 Then Abraham rose from beside his dead wife and spoke to the Hittites.[a] He said, 4 “I am a foreigner and stranger among you. Sell me some property for a burial site here so I can bury my dead.”

5 The Hittites replied to Abraham, 6 “Sir, listen to us. You are a mighty prince among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs. None of us will refuse you his tomb for burying your dead.”

7 Then Abraham rose and bowed down before the people of the land, the Hittites. 8 He said to them, “If you are willing to let me bury my dead, then listen to me and intercede with Ephron son of Zohar on my behalf 9 so he will sell me the cave of Machpelah, which belongs to him and is at the end of his field. Ask him to sell it to me for the full price as a burial site among you.”

10 Ephron the Hittite was sitting among his people and he replied to Abraham in the hearing of all the Hittites who had come to the gate of his city. 11 “No, my lord,” he said. “Listen to me; I give[b] you the field, and I give[c] you the cave that is in it. I give[d] it to you in the presence of my people. Bury your dead.”

12 Again Abraham bowed down before the people of the land 13 and he said to Ephron in their hearing, “Listen to me, if you will. I will pay the price of the field. Accept it from me so I can bury my dead there.”

14 Ephron answered Abraham, 15 “Listen to me, my lord; the land is worth four hundred shekels[e] of silver, but what is that between you and me? Bury your dead.”

16 Abraham agreed to Ephron’s terms and weighed out for him the price he had named in the hearing of the Hittites: four hundred shekels of silver, according to the weight current among the merchants.

17 So Ephron’s field in Machpelah near Mamre—both the field and the cave in it, and all the trees within the borders of the field—was deeded 18 to Abraham as his property in the presence of all the Hittites who had come to the gate of the city. 19 Afterward Abraham buried his wife Sarah in the cave in the field of Machpelah near Mamre (which is at Hebron) in the land of Canaan. 20 So the field and the cave in it were deeded to Abraham by the Hittites as a burial site.