The most quoted line on repentance, and why it is not here

There is a sentence that appears in almost every article on this. The one who repents from sin is like one who never sinned.

It is narrated in Sunan Ibn Majah, and on sunnah.com it is graded weak. We are saying that out loud rather than dropping it quietly, because it is one of the most circulated lines in the whole subject and you deserve to know which of the things you have been told are sound.

There is a second one worth naming, and it goes the other way. Every son of Adam sins, and the best of those who sin are the ones who repent. That one is sound, and so is the reference. It is at Jami' at-Tirmidhi 2499 and again at Sunan Ibn Majah 4251, and both are graded sound here, so either number will hold up if somebody checks it.

There is also a verse that says something stronger than that weak sentence does. God will change the evil deeds of such people into good ones. Be told where it sits, so that looking it up holds no surprise: it is an exception clause, and the two verses before it name sins and state a doubled punishment. We are quoting the exception, and telling you the rest is there.

What we have used instead, in the step above, is stronger than either of them and says something warmer.