Luke 18:8-14

⁸No. I’m telling you this for sure. God will listen to you, and he will get up quick and he will make sure you get a fair go.” Then Jesus said, “But when I, God’s special man, come back again from heaven to this earth, will I find people trusting me, or not?”

⁹Some people there thought that they were really good, and they rubbished everyone else. They reckoned, “We are so good that God will always say we are all right.” So Jesus told them this picture story. He said,

¹⁰“I will tell you about 2 men that went to God’s ceremony house to pray to him. One of them was a law man called a Pharisee, and the other was a man that took tax money from people to give it to the government. You know, nobody likes the men that do that.

¹¹The Pharisee stood by himself, where everyone could see him, and he said, ‘Thank you, God, that I am different from everyone else. You see, God, I don’t cheat anyone, and I don’t do anything bad. I don’t sleep with anyone that is not my wife. I’m not a bad man like that man over there. He takes money from people to give it to the government.

¹²But I am good. On 2 days every week I don’t eat any food, and whenever I get some money I give you some of it, like $1 out of every $10. So you have to say I am all right.’

¹³But the government money man was sorry for the bad things he did. He was ashamed, 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 be sorry for me and don’t punish me.’

¹⁴I’m telling now, God listened to that bad man that was sorry, and God said he is all right. He went home feeling good. But God didn’t say that for the Pharisee, the man that reckoned he was real good. He didn’t go home feeling good. You see, if you reckon you are important, God will make you not important. But if you reckon you are not important, God will make you important.”