This was my lot ¹  for twenty years in your house: I worked like a slave ²  for you – fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flocks, but you changed my wages ten times!

I used you to smash shepherds and their flocks. I used you to smash farmers and their teams of oxen. I used you to smash governors and leaders.” ¹ 

When some ¹  shepherds came and drove them away, ²  Moses came up and defended them ³  and then watered their flock.

“‘If his offering is from the flock for a burnt offering ¹  – from the sheep or the goats – he must present a flawless male,

All the tithe of herd or flock, everything which passes under the rod, the tenth one will be holy to the Lord. ¹ 

Then I said, ¹  “Look up, Jerusalem, ²  and see the enemy ³  that is coming from the north. Where now is the flock of people that were entrusted to your care? ⁴  Where now are the ‘sheep’ that you take such pride in? ⁵ 

Surely you’re not greater than our ancestor ¹  Jacob, are you? For he gave us this well and drank from it himself, along with his sons and his livestock.” ² 

This is the account of Jacob. Joseph, his seventeen-year-old son, ¹  was taking care of ²  the flocks with his brothers. Now he was a youngster ³  working with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives. ⁴  Joseph brought back a bad report about them ⁵  to their father.

Issachar is a strong-boned donkey lying down between two saddlebags.

From the Israelites’ half-share you are to take one portion out of fifty of the people, the cattle, the donkeys, and the sheep – from every kind of animal – and you are to give them to the Levites, who are responsible for the care of the Lord’s tabernacle.”

He will love and bless you, and make you numerous. He will bless you with many children, ¹  with the produce of your soil, your grain, your new wine, your oil, the offspring of your oxen, and the young of your flocks in the land which he promised your ancestors to give you.

They ¹  will devour the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your soil until you are destroyed. They will not leave you with any grain, new wine, olive oil, calves of your herds, ²  or lambs of your flocks ³  until they have destroyed you.

He chose David, his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds.

Flocks and herds ¹  will lie down in the middle of it, as well as every kind of wild animal. ²  Owls ³  will sleep in the tops of its support pillars; they will hoot through the windows. ⁴  Rubble will cover the thresholds; ⁵  even the cedar work ⁶  will be exposed to the elements. ⁷ 

“You must exact ¹  a tribute for the Lord from the fighting men who went out to battle: one life out of five hundred, from the people, the cattle, and from the donkeys and the sheep.

¹ Now the Reubenites and the Gadites possessed a very large number of cattle. When they saw that the lands of Jazer and Gilead were ideal for cattle, ² 

honey, curds, flocks, and cheese. ¹  For they said, “The people are no doubt hungry, tired, and thirsty there in the desert.” ² 

From his own royal flocks and herds, Josiah supplied the people with 30,000 lambs and goats for the Passover sacrifice, as well as 3,000 cattle. ¹ 

Wail and cry out in anguish, you rulers! Roll in the dust, you who shepherd flocks of people! ¹  The time for you to be slaughtered has come. You will lie scattered and fallen like broken pieces of fine pottery. ² 

In this way God has snatched away your father’s livestock and given them to me.