6. home, go to your friends and neighbors and say to them, ‘Be happy with me because I found my lost sheep!’
7. In the same way, I tell you, heaven is a happy place when one sinner decides to change. There is more joy for that one sinner than for 99 good people who don’t need to change.
8. “Suppose a woman has ten silver coins, but she loses one of them. She will take a light and clean the house. She will look carefully for the coin until she finds it.
9. And when she finds it, she will call her friends and neighbors and say to them, ‘Be happy with me because I have found the coin that I lost!’
10. In the same way, it’s a happy time for the angels of God when one sinner decides to change.”
11. Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons.
12. The younger son said to his father, ‘Give me now the part of your property that I am supposed to receive someday.’ So the father divided his wealth between his two sons.
13. “A few days later the younger son gathered up all that he had and left. He traveled far away to another country, and there he wasted his money living like a fool.
14. After he spent everything he had, there was a terrible famine throughout the country. He was hungry and needed money.
15. So he went and got a job with one of the people who lived there. The man sent him into the fields to feed pigs.
16. He was so hungry that he wanted to eat the food the pigs were eating. But no one gave him anything.
17. “The son realized that he had been very foolish. He thought, ‘All my father’s hired workers have plenty of food. But here I am, almost dead because I have nothing to eat.
18. I will leave and go to my father. I will say to him: Father, I have sinned against God and have done wrong to you.
19. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But let me be like one of your hired workers.’
20. So he left and went to his father. “While the son was still a long way off, his father saw him coming and felt sorry for him. So he ran to him and hugged and kissed him.