Peter asked Jesus: “How many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Peter was erring on the side of magnanimity, for the rabbis in his day had suggested three as the maximum number of times one might be expected to forgive.
“Not seven times, but seventy-seven times” replied Jesus in a flash. Some manuscripts have “seventy times seven”, but it hardly matters whether Jesus said 77 or 490: forgiveness, he implied, is not the kind of thing you count on abacus.
[excerpt from a Philip Yancey book - What's so Amazing about Grace]
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