“What do you think? If any man has one hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is straying?
¶“My people have become lost sheep; Their shepherds have led them astray. They have made them turn away on the mountains; They have gone along from mountain to hill And have forgotten their resting place.
As a shepherd cares for his herd in the day when he is among his sheep which are spread out, so I will care for My sheep and will deliver them from all the places to which they were scattered on a cloudy and gloomy day.
“I will search for the lost, bring back the scattered, bind up the broken, and strengthen the sick; but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd them with judgment.
They will no longer be plunder to the nations, and the beasts of the earth will not devour them; but they will live securely, and no one will make them tremble.
Those who are sickly you have not strengthened, and the diseased you have not healed, and the broken you have not bound up, and the scattered you have not brought back, nor have you searched for the lost; but with strength and with severity you have dominated them.
My flock wandered through all the mountains and on every high hill; My flock was scattered over all the surface of the earth, and there was no one to seek or search for them.” ’ ”
And He said to them, “What man is there among you who has a sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out?