He that concealeth a transgression, seeketh friendships: he that repeateth it again, separateth friends.

And be ye kind one to another: merciful, forgiving one another, even as God hath forgiven you in Christ.

For if you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences.

Bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if any have a complaint against another. Even as the Lord hath forgiven you, so do you also.

And my people, upon whom my name is called, being converted, shall make supplication to me, and seek out my face, and do penance for their most wicked ways: then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins and will heal their land.

Judge not: and you shall not be judged. Condemn not: and you shall not be condemned. Forgive: and you shall be forgiven.

Who is a God like to thee, who takest away iniquity, and passest by the sin of the remnant of thy inheritance? he will send his fury in no more, because he delighteth in mercy.

Shall not Sion say: This man and that man is born in her? and the Highest himself hath founded her.

He that hideth his sins, shall not prosper: but he that shall confess, and forsake them, shall obtain mercy.

Be it known therefore to you, men, brethren, that through him forgiveness of sins is preached to you: and from all the things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.
In him every one that believeth is justified.

And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

In whom we have redemption through his blood, the remission of sins, according to the riches of his, grace,

And rend your hearts, and not your garments and turn to the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, patient and rich in mercy, and ready to repent of the evil.

But Peter said to them: Do penance: and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

He loveth mercy and judgment; the earth is full of the mercy of the Lord.

And when you shall stand to pray, forgive, if you have aught against any man: that your Father also, who is in heaven, may forgive you your sins.

And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.

Then came Peter unto him and said: Lord, how often shall my brother offend against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?
Jesus saith to him: I say not to thee, till seven times; but till seventy times seven times.

And Ezechias sent to all Israel and Juda: and he wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasses, that they should come to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, and keep the phase to the Lord the God of Israel,
For the king, taking counsel, and the princes, and all the assembly of Jerusalem, decreed to keep the phase the second month.
For they could not keep it in its time; because there were not priests enough sanctified, and the people was not as yet gathered together to Jerusalem.
And the thing pleased the king, and all the people.
And they decreed to send messengers to all Israel from Bersabee even to Dan, that they should come, and keep the phase to the Lord the God of Israel in Jerusalem: for many had not kept it as it is prescribed by the law.
And the posts went with letters by commandment of the king, and his princes, to all Israel and Juda, proclaiming according to the king’s orders: Ye children of Israel, turn again to the Lord the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Israel: and he will return to the remnant of you that have escaped the hand of the king of the Assyrians.
Be not like your fathers, and brethren, who departed from the Lord the God of their fathers, and he hath given them up to destruction, as you see.
Harden not your necks, as your fathers did: yield yourselves to the Lord, and come to his sanctuary, which he hath sanctified forever: serve the Lord the God of your fathers, and the wrath of his indignation shall be turned away from you.
For if you turn again to the Lord, your brethren, and children shall find mercy before their masters, that have led them away captive, and they shall return into this land: for the Lord your God is merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if you return to him.
So the posts went speedily from city to city, through the land of Ephraim, and of Manasses, even to Zabulon, whilst they laughed at them and mocked them.
Nevertheless some men of Aser, and of Manasses, and of Zabulon, yielding to the counsel, came to Jerusalem.
But the hand of God was in Juda, to give them one heart to do the word of the Lord, according to the commandment of the king, and of the princes.
And much people were assembled to Jerusalem to celebrate the solemnity of the unleavened bread in the second month:
And they arose and destroyed the altars that were in Jerusalem, and took away all things in which incense was burnt to idols and cast them into the torrent Cedron.
And they immolated the phase on the fourteenth day of the second month. And the priests and the Levites being at length sanctified offered holocausts in the house of the Lord.
And they stood in their order according to the disposition and law of Moses the man of God: but the priests received the blood which was to be poured out, from the hands of the Levites,
Because a great number was not sanctified: and therefore the Levites immolated the phase for them that came not in time to be sanctified to the Lord.
For a great part of the people from Ephraim, and Manasses, and Issachar, and Zabulon, that had not been sanctified, ate the phase otherwise than it is written: and Ezechias prayed for them, saying: The Lord who is good will shew mercy,
To all them, who with their whole heart, seek the Lord the God of their fathers: and will not impute it to them that they are not sanctified.
And the Lord heard him, and was merciful to the people.
And the children of Israel, that were found at Jerusalem, kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with great joy, praising the Lord every day, the Levites also, and the priests, with instruments that agreed to their office.
And Ezechias spoke to the heart of all the Levites, that had good understanding concerning the Lord: and they ate during the seven days of the solemnity, immolating victims of peace offerings, and praising the Lord the God of their fathers.
And it pleased the whole multitude to keep other seven days: which they did with great joy.
For Ezechias the king of Juda had given to the multitude a thousand bullocks, and seven thousand sheep: and the princes had given the people a thousand bullocks, and ten thousand sheep: and a great number of priests was sanctified.
And all the multitude of Juda with the priests and Levites, and all the assembly, that came out of Israel; and the proselytes of the land of Israel, and that dwelt in Juda were full of joy.
And there was a great solemnity in Jerusalem, such as had not been in that city since the time of Solomon the son of David king of Israel.
And the priests and the Levites rose up and blessed the people: and their voice was heard: and their prayer came to the holy dwelling place of heaven.

Be penitent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out.

Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.
And the prayer of faith shall save the sick man. And the Lord shall raise him up: and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him.

And God indeed having winked at the times of this ignorance, now declareth unto men that all should every where do penance.

It is commonly said: If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and marry another man, shall he return to her any more? shall not that woman be polluted, and defiled? but thou hast prostituted thyself to many lovers: nevertheless return to me, saith the Lord, and I will receive thee.
Lift up thy eyes on high: and see where thou hast not prostituted thyself: thou didst sit in the ways, waiting for them as a robber in the wilderness: and thou hast polluted the land with thy fornications, and with thy wickedness.
Therefore the showers were withholden, and there was no lateward rain: thou hadst a harlot’s forehead, thou wouldst not blush.
Therefore at the least from this time call to me: Thou art my father, the guide of my virginity:
Wilt thou be angry for ever, or wilt thou continue unto the end? Behold, thou hast spoken, and hast done evil things, and hast been able.
And the Lord said to me in the days of king Josias: Hast thou seen what rebellious Israel hath done? she hath gone of herself upon every high mountain, and under every green tree, and hath played the harlot there.
And when she had done all these things, I said: Return to me, and she did not return. And her treacherous sister Juda saw,
That because the rebellious Israel had played the harlot, I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce: yet her treacherous sister Juda was not afraid, but went and played the harlot also herself.
And by the facility of her fornication she defiled the land, and played the harlot with stones and with stocks.
And after all this, her treacherous sister Juda hath not returned to me with her whole heart, but with falsehood, saith the Lord.
And the Lord said to me: The rebellious Israel hath justified her soul, in comparison of the treacherous Juda.
Go, and proclaim these words towards the north, and thou shalt say: Return, O rebellious Israel, saith the Lord, and I will not turn away my face from you: for I am holy, saith the Lord, and I will not be angry for ever.
But yet acknowledge thy iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God: and thou hast scattered thy ways to strangers under every green tree, and hast not heard my voice, saith the Lord.
Return, O ye revolting children, saith the Lord: for I am your husband: and I will take you, one of a city, and two of a kindred, and will bring you into Sion.
And I will give you pastors according to my own heart, and they shall feed you with knowledge and doctrine.
And when you shall be multiplied, and increase in the land in those days, saith the Lord, they shall say no more: The ark of the covenant of the Lord: neither shall it come upon the heart, neither shall they remember it, neither shall it be visited, neither shall that be done any more.
At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord: and all the nations shall be gathered together to it, in the name of the Lord to Jerusalem, and they shall not walk after the perversity of their most wicked heart.
In those days the house of Juda shall go to the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land which I gave to your fathers.
But I said: How shall I put thee among the children, and give thee a lovely land, the goodly inheritance of the armies of the Gentiles? And I said: Thou shalt call me father and shalt not cease to walk after me.
But as a woman that despiseth her lover, so hath the house of Israel despised me, saith the Lord.
A voice was heard in the highways, weeping and howling of the children of Israel: because they have made their way wicked, they have forgotten the Lord their God.
Return, you rebellious children, and I will heal your rebellions. Behold we come to thee: for thou art the Lord our God.
In very deed the hills were liars, and the multitude of the mountains: truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel.
Confusion hath devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.
We shall sleep in our confusion, and our shame shall cover us, because we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers from our youth even to this day, and we have not hearkened to the voice of the Lord our God.

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unjust man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God: for he is bountiful to forgive.

Yet in thy very many mercies thou didst not utterly consume them, nor forsake them: because thou art a merciful and gracious God.