इष्टान्भोगान्हि वो देवा दास्यन्ते यज्ञभाविताः।तैर्दत्तानप्रदायैभ्यो यो भुङ्क्ते स्तेन एव सः॥
iṣṭān bhogān hi vo devā dāsyante yajña-bhāvitāḥtair dattān apradāyaibhyo yo bhuṅkte stena eva saḥ
Word by word
The verse says
Sustained by your offering, those powers will give you what you need. Take what they give and hand none of it back, and you are simply a thief.
In plain words
A hard word, and it is chosen deliberately: stena — thief.
Not ungrateful. Not selfish. Thief. Someone who takes from a circuit without returning anything to it.
The logic is exact. If everything you have came through something, and nothing goes back, then what you are doing has a name.
Where you've felt this · with money
Someone uses the shared kitchen every day and has never once replaced anything in it. There is no rule being broken and nobody has said anything. Everyone knows.
Going deeper
The accusation only works because of the picture built in the verses around it. Nothing you have is self-generated.
The food came from rain and soil and work you did not do. The language you think in was handed to you. The skills were taught. On this account there is no such thing as a self-made position, only a position that has stopped noticing its supply lines.
Apradāya — without giving back. That is the whole charge.
What this does not say is that you owe a specific ritual. Verse 9 has already stretched yajña past the fire altar. What is being asked for is that the movement continue through you rather than stop at you.
And there is a psychological claim folded in, which the chapter will make explicit at verse 16. A life that only receives does not feel abundant. It feels precarious, because everything in it is held rather than passing through.