¹ The tax-gatherers and the outcasts were all drawing near to Jesus to listen to him;

² but the Pharisees and the teachers of the law found fault. “This man always welcomes outcasts, and takes meals with them!” they complained.

³ So Jesus told them this parable —

⁴ “Who among you who has a hundred sheep, and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine out in the open country, and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?

⁵ And, when he has found it, he puts in on his shoulders rejoicing;

⁶ and, on reaching home, he calls his friends and his neighbours together, and says ‘Come and rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.’

⁷ So, I tell you, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one outcast who repents, than over ninety-nine religious people, who have no need to repent.

⁸ Or again, what woman who has ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, and sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?

⁹ And, when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbours together, and says ‘Come and rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I lost.’

¹⁰ So, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of God’s angels over one outcast who repents.”

¹¹ Then Jesus continued: “A man had two sons;

¹² and the younger of them said to his father ‘Father, give me my share of the inheritance.’ So the father divided the property between them.

¹³ A few days later the younger son got together all that he had, and went away into a distant land; and there he squandered his inheritance by leading a dissolute life.

¹⁴ After he has spent all that he had, there was a severe famine through all that country, and he began to be in actual want.

¹⁵ So he went and engaged himself to one of the people of that country, who sent him into his fields to tend pigs.

¹⁶ He even longed to satisfy his hunger with the bean-pods on which the pigs were feeding; and no one gave him anything.

¹⁷ But, when he came to himself, he said ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more bread than they can eat, while here am I starving to death!

¹⁸ I will get up and go to my father, and say to him “Father, I sinned against heaven and against you;

¹⁹ I am no longer fit to be called your son; make me one of your hired servants.”’

²⁰ And he got up and went to his father. But, while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was deeply moved; he ran and threw his arms round his neck and kissed him.

²¹ ‘Father,’ the son said, ‘I sinned against heaven and against you; I am no longer fit to be called your son; make me one of your hired servants.’

²² But the father turned to his servants and said ‘Be quick and fetch a robe — the very best — and put it on him; give him a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet;

²³ and bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry;

²⁴ for here is my son who was dead, and is alive again, was lost, and is found.’ So they began making merry.

²⁵ Meanwhile the elder son was out in the fields; but, on coming home, when he got near the house, he heard music and dancing,

²⁶ and he called one of the servants and asked what it all meant.

²⁷ ‘Your brother has come back,’ the servant told him, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has him back safe and sound.’

²⁸ This made him angry, and he would not go in. But his father came out and begged him to do so.

²⁹ ‘No,’ he said to his father, ‘look at all the years I have been serving you, without ever once disobeying you, and yet you have never given me even a young goat, so that I might have a merrymaking with my friends.

³⁰ But, no sooner has this son of yours come, who has eaten up your property in the company of prostitutes, than you have killed the fattened calf for him.’

³¹ ‘Child,’ the father answered, ‘you are always with me, and everything that I have is yours.

³² We could but make merry and rejoice, for here is your brother who was dead, and is alive; who was lost, and is found.’”