Day 18

I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy-seven times.

Matthew 18:22

Read it aloud. Then sit with it. Say nothing for five minutes.

Who have you forgiven, but not that many times?

The card is drawn on your own phone and never leaves it until you send it.

A note on a number: seventy-seven

The Greek is hebdomekontakis hepta. It can be read as seventy-seven or as seventy times seven, and English Bibles are divided; the Greek genuinely allows both. Seventy-seven stands here because it is the smaller of the two numbers, and because the Greek Old Testament uses this exact phrase at Genesis 4:24 for Lamech's boast of seventy-sevenfold revenge, the boast he is answering. Either way, he is refusing to let the counting continue.