⁷ Thus, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one [^[a]especially] wicked person who repents (^[b]changes his mind, abhorring his errors and misdeeds, and determines to enter upon a better course of life) than over ninety-nine righteous persons who have no need of repentance.

¹⁶ For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (^[a]unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.