John 10:1

Plain English Version

Jesus talked some more and said, “Listen to this picture story about a mob of sheep and some men. This picture story’s message is true. One of the men in this story owns some sheep, and he looks after them properly. He is called their shepherd. He keeps those sheep in a yard with a big fence. And there is a man that looks after the gate of that yard. Whenever the shepherd goes there, that man always lets him in the gate. Then the shepherd calls each sheep’s name, and they know that he is their shepherd, so they come to him. Then he takes all his sheep out of the yard to a place with grass for them to eat. Wherever he walks, they follow him, because they know his voice and they trust him. But another man in this story doesn’t own the sheep. He wants to steal them, so he doesn’t go into the yard through the gate, but he climbs over the fence.

Cross References

Matthew 7:15

Then Jesus told them, “Always be careful. Don’t believe everybody. There are some people that reckon they are telling you a message from God, but they are liars. They try to get you to think they are like sheep, like they are soft and will not give you any trouble. But really, they are like wild dingoes. They will give you trouble, like dingoes hurt sheep. If you believe their words, then you will get lots of trouble.

John 10:7

so he said, “I will tell you something else. Listen to this, it’s true. I am like a gate in a sheep yard.

John 3:3

Jesus said to him, “Listen, I am telling you straight, people have to get born again, and then they can be in God’s family.”

Romans 10:15

And somebody has to send those messengers to go and tell the people about Jesus. God says this in his book too, “It is really good to see God’s messengers come and bring his good news.”

Romans 16:18

They don’t work for our leader, Jesus Christ, but they just work for themselves. They try to trick people. They talk really nicely to people and say good things about them. They do that to get whatever they want for themselves. They trick people that don’t think about it properly.

Titus 1:11

Those people teach things that are wrong. They trick whole families. And they only do that to get money from people. So you have to stop them.

1 Peter 1:10

A long time ago, the men that brought God’s messages told people about God. They said that he is good, and that he saves us. At that time, they wanted to find out more about God saving people, so they carefully tried to find out more about the man that God promised to send to save people, called the Christ. The spirit of Jesus Christ was in them and showed them that at first the Christ was going get big trouble, and he was going to die. But after that, God would make him really important. So they wanted to know who the Christ was and when he was going to come.

2 Peter 2:1

In God’s book we read about his people a long time ago. Sometimes some liars started to teach God’s people things that were wrong. They reckoned they were saying God’s words, but they were lying. And the same sort of thing will happen now. There will be people among you that will teach things that are wrong. If you listen to them, you will go wrong, and it will be bad for you. Those people will even turn against Jesus. He is our leader, and he died to save them. And one day soon, God will punish them for that wrong thing they do.

2 Peter 2:3

Those lying teachers only want your money. So they will tell you tricky lies to get you to give them money. A long time ago, God said that he will punish them, and he is ready to do that. One day, he will properly finish up those liars.