deliverance from sins (1:21). The plural “sins” implies that Matthew does not conceive of sin as an external power that has enslaved its victims so as to make them sin against their will (contrast esp. Rom. 7:7–23). By modifying “sins,” “their” fixes the blame for sinning on the sinners themselves, so that deliverance from sins means deliverance from punishment for sinful acts, such as those listed in 15:19: “evil designs, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies” (all