<p>17:4<i> And if he sins against you seven times in the day and seven times turns again to you, saying: I repent: You shall forgive him</i>-Peter found it hard to grapple with the idea that the degree or amount of sin was irrelevant. But &quot;seventy times seven&quot; indicated how far out he was. Even when a brother's repentance seems humanly unlikely (the 490th time in the day, the seventy sevens of Matthew, takes some believing), we must still have that covenant mercy for him. Note that only a verbal repentance was required- and the Lord said that the forgiver was to just accept this, rather than demand evidence of 'forsaking' in physical terms. The Greek word for repentance is a compound meaning &lsquo;to think differently after&rsquo;. Repentance is essentially a changed <i>attitude of mind</i>. This is why it&rsquo;s difficult to judge whether it exists within the heart of another person. and the Lord seems to be saying that we are not to judge the quality of another's' repentance, which effectively means not demanding repentance before forgiving. We live constantly in need and receipt of mercy, every second of our existence. The New Covenant is often spoken of in the Old Testament as &quot;mercy&quot; and/or &quot;truth&quot;. If we are <i>in</i> that Covenant, we are permanently living <i>in</i> grace/mercy. Mercy is not something which we just receive in the few moments while we pray for forgiveness. It is something constantly ongoing. We live <i>in</i> it. If we appreciated this, we would not see our forgiveness of others as something we occasionally 'grant'; we will extend mercy to them constantly, as God does to us. So the Lord's apparent requirement for repentance before forgiveness in :3 is tempered by this explanation- that we are to forgive when repentance seems so insincere that it is not repentance. This is rather typical of His teaching style and usage of language and ideas.</p>