Luke 15:6-19

⁶After he gets home he will call out to all his friends. He will say, ‘Hey, I’ve found my lost sheep. We can all be happy together now.’

⁷Well, it is like that in heaven, too. Whenever one bad person turns around and leaves the bad way, and lives God’s way, everyone in heaven is really happy. They are more happy about that person than they are about the big mob of other people that never went wrong.”

⁸Jesus told them another picture story. He said, “Suppose a woman has 10 coins, but then she loses one of them in her house. What do you think she will do? She will get a torch and look carefully everywhere in the house. She will even sweep all the floors, and she will keep looking for her money until she finds it.

⁹Then, after she finds it, she will call out to all her friends, she will say, ‘Hey, I’ve found my lost coin. We can all be happy together now.’

¹⁰Well, it is like that in heaven, too. Whenever one bad person turns around and leaves the bad way, and lives God’s way, God’s angel messengers in heaven are really happy.”

¹¹Jesus told the people this picture story. He said, “There was a man who had 2 sons.

¹²One day his youngest son said to him, ‘Dad, I want you to give me my share of all the things you own. I can’t wait to get it after you die. No, I want it all now.’ So his father split up everything he had and gave one part to his youngest son, and he kept the other part for his oldest son.

¹³A few days later that youngest son sold all those things that his father gave him, then he took the money and went away to another country. In that country he soon spent all his money. He just wasted it on all kinds of things that made him feel good.

¹⁴After a while he had no money left. At that time they got short of food in that place, and soon that boy had nothing to eat.

¹⁵So he got a job with a man in that place. He had to look after that man’s pigs.

¹⁶That boy was so hungry he wanted to eat the garbage that the pigs ate, but nobody gave him anything to eat.

¹⁷At last he started to think properly. He thought, ‘Those men who work for my dad in his garden back home, they always get enough to eat. But I am getting so hungry that I reckon I will die in this place.

¹⁸So I will get up now and go back home to my dad, and I will say to him, “Dad, I’m sorry, I went wrong. I did wrong to God, and I did wrong to you.

¹⁹So now I’m not good enough for you to call me your son, but just let me have a job in your garden. I will work for you, and you can just call me your working man.” ’