The second half of Matthew 18 is introduced by Peter’s question regarding the appropriate number of times that forgiveness is warranted (18:21). Although generous in his suggestion, Peter’s sevenfold forgiveness contrasts with Jesus’s answer of “seventy-seven times” (18:22). His answer alludes to Genesis 4:24, where Cain’s son Lamech claims that God will avenge him seventy-seven times (cf. Gen. 4:13–15). Jesus’s call to his messianic community is to live out a reversal …