Matthew 18:15-25

If Your Brother Sins Against You

15 ¹"If your brother sins against you, ²go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have ³gained your brother.

16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established ⁴by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

17 If he refuses to listen to them, ⁵tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, ⁶let him be to you as ⁷a Gentile and ⁸a tax collector.

18 Truly, I say to you, ⁹whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed^[a] in heaven.

19 Again I say to you, if two of you ¹⁰agree on earth about anything they ask, ¹¹it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.

20 For where two or three are ¹²gathered in my name, ¹³there am I among them."

The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant

21 Then Peter came up and said to him, "Lord, how often ¹⁴will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? ¹⁵As many as seven times?"

22 Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.^[b]

23 "Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished ¹⁶to settle accounts with his servants.^[c]

24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ¹⁷ten thousand ¹⁸talents.^[d]

25 ¹⁹And since he could not pay, his master ordered him ²⁰to be sold, with his wife and ²¹children and all that he had, and payment to be made.

Cross References

• 1. Luke 17:3
• 2. 2 Thessalonians 3:15; [Titus 3:10; James 5:19]; See Leviticus 19:17
• 3. 1 Corinthians 9:19-22; 1 Peter 3:1
• 4. Deuteronomy 19:15; 2 Corinthians 13:1; [Numbers 35:30; John 8:17; 1 Timothy 5:19; Hebrews 10:28]
• 5. [1 Corinthians 5:4, 5; 1 Corinthians 6:1-6]
• 6. [Romans 16:17; 1 Corinthians 5:9-13; 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 14; 2 John 10]
• 7. Matthew 5:46, 47
• 8. Matthew 5:46, 47
• 9. [Matthew 16:19; John 20:23]
• 10. [Acts 12:5, 12; Philemon 22]
• 11. See Matthew 7:7
• 12. [Acts 4:30, 31; 1 Corinthians 5:4]
• 13. [Matthew 28:20; John 12:26; John 20:20, 26]
• 14. ver. 15
• 15. Luke 17:3, 4; [Colossians 3:13]
• 16. Matthew 25:19
• 17. Esther 3:9
• 18. Matthew 25:15
• 19. [Luke 7:42]
• 20. Exodus 21:2; Leviticus 25:39
• 21. 2 Kings 4:1; Nehemiah 5:5

Footnotes

• [a]. Or shall have been bound... shall have been loosed
• [b]. Or seventy-seven times
• [c]. Greek bondservants; also verses 28, 31
• [d]. A talent was a monetary unit worth about twenty years' wages for a laborer