Luke 18:13

Plain English Version

But the tax man was sorry for the bad things he did. He felt shame, so he did not stand close to the other people. He looked down at the ground, and he hit himself on his chest. He said, ‘I’m sorry, God. I know I did bad things. Please feel sorry for me and don’t punish me.’ ”

Cross References

2 Samuel 12:13

David said to Nathan, “I’m sorry. I did wrong things. I did not listen to God.” Nathan said, “Yes, that’s true. But he will not do payback to you. He will let it go, he will not kill you dead.

Psalm 40:12

And I have lots of troubles now. It feels like there are troubles all around me, lots of troubles, so I can’t count them all. It’s like all the bad things I did are here with me, and I don’t know the right thing to do. I did lots of bad things, more bad things than the number of hairs on my head, so now I feel weak inside.

Matthew 6:5

Jesus said, “Don’t pray like those people that want everyone to think they are good, even though they are not good. They like to stand up and pray in the meeting houses and on the busy street corners, so that lots of people can see them praying. They want to hear people say, ‘That’s a good person.’ But listen, that is all those people will get. God will not give them anything good for doing that.”

Mark 11:25

And whenever you pray, first think about this. If somebody did a wrong thing to you, you have to let it go. Don’t think about payback. If you let it go, then God will let go of all the wrong things you have done too. He will say you are not guilty, and he will not do payback. So before you pray to God, you have to let go of all the wrong things that people did to you.”

Luke 17:12

He got to a town, and he started to go into it, but 10 men met him there. They all had a bad skin sickness, so they didn’t come close to Jesus, but they stood a little bit away from him and shouted to him.

Acts 2:37

All the people heard the things that Peter said, and they felt a lot of shame. So they said to Peter, and to Jesus’s other special workers, “Friends, what can we do?”

Romans 5:8

But Jesus Christ died for us while we were still really bad people. That shows that God really loves us very much.

1 Timothy 1:15

You sometimes hear people say this, “Jesus Christ came into this world to save bad people, to make them into better people.” That is very true, and everybody has to believe it. And it tells the story about me too. I was really bad. I was worse than anybody else.