When Jesus heard that, he told them, “People who are healthy don’t need a doctor. Sick people do. I haven’t come to call those who are right with God. I’ve come for sinners.”
I tell you, it will be the same in heaven. There will be more celebration for one sinner who turns away from sin than for 99 godly people who don’t have sins they need to turn away from.
But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve worked like a slave for you. I’ve always obeyed your orders. But you’ve never given me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.
Jesus told them, “You try to make yourselves look good in the eyes of other people, but God knows your hearts. There are things that people value highly that God can’t stand.
I preached first to the people in Damascus, and then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and then to the Gentiles. I told them to give up their sins and turn to God and to show they’d done this by the way they lived.
Then the Pharisees replied, “Your parents were living in sin when you were born! You know what that makes you. So how dare you talk to us like that?” And they threw him out of the synagogue.