"Parable of the Unmerciful Servant"

In this painting Jan Sanders van Hemessen, one of the most successful artists of his day, dramatically portrays a biblical parable about mercy and hypocrisy. The story, told by Christ in the Gospel of Matthew (18:21–35), begins with a servant who owes his king a tremendous sum of money. The king shows mercy and forgives his servant’s debt; but when the same servant later refuses to forgive a trifling debt owed him by another man, the king reverses his earlier judgment and orders the unmerciful servant cast into prison. The lesson of this tale is that God will be equally merciless to those who do not show forgiveness to others.