Scriptures

New Living Translation (NLT)

Luke 14
³⁵ Flavorless salt is good neither for the soil nor for the manure pile. It is thrown away. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand!”
Luke 15
¹ Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach.
² This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them!
³ So Jesus told them this story:
⁴ “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it?
⁵ And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders.
⁶ When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’
⁷ In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!
⁸ “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it?
⁹ And when she finds it, she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost coin.’
¹⁰ In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents.”