Luke 19:22-23

“He says to him, ‘Out of your own mouth will I judge you, you wicked servant. You knew that I am an austere man, taking up that which I laid not down, and reaping that which I did not sow, then why did you not give my money into the bank, and I at my coming would have required it with interest?' ”

The King immediately spotted the weakness in his argument, and judged him on the basis of it, pointing out that he was judging him on the basis of his own words (compare Luke 12:3). In the end what a man says is evidence of what is in his heart (Luke 6:45; Matthew 12:34). It was not a matter of the servant having been called on to take great risks. The King recognised that he may not have been able to do much, but all he had had to do was put the money with bankers (those who sat at tables as money traders), who would then have paid good interest. With his master's wellbeing in mind that would surely have been his obvious course. The problem was that he had not been concerned about his master's interests. All he had thought of were his own interests and how undeserving his master was.