Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. The until you have paid the last penny intensifies the warning: the consequence of the unresolved conflict is total, extending to the smallest unit of currency — the full debt must be paid before freedom is restored. The penny (kodrantes, the smallest Roman coin) communicates that the accounting is exact and exhaustive. Whether the prison and the debt are to be read literally (consequences in human legal systems) or figuratively (eschatological consequences) has been debated, but the intensity of the warning is the point: the cost of unresolved conflict is not reduced by delay.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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