When his master returned to settle accounts, what excuse did he give? He complained: “Master, I knew you to be an exacting man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not winnow.

Matt. 25:24, 25.

In his negative thinking this slave tried to justify himself when the accounting was made. He tried to place wrongdoing on his lord. He charged his lord with getting crops, not only from his own land, but also from land he had not cultivated, and gathering grain that he had not winnowed of its chaff.