3
Their grumbling triggered this story.
4
"Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn't you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it?
5
When found, you can be sure you would put it across your shoulders, rejoicing,
6
and when you got home call in your friends and neighbors, saying, 'Celebrate with me! I've found my lost sheep!'
7
Count on it - there's more joy in heaven over one sinner's rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue.
8
"Or imagine a woman who has ten coins and loses one. Won't she light a lamp and scour the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it?
9
And when she finds it you can be sure she'll call her friends and neighbors: 'Celebrate with me! I found my lost coin!'
10
Count on it - that's the kind of party God's angels throw every time one lost soul turns to God."
11
Then he said, "There was once a man who had two sons.
12
The younger said to his father, 'Father, I want right now what's coming to me.'
13
It wasn't long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had.