So ¹  the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising ²  God for all they had heard and seen; everything was just as they had been told. ³ 

When all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds ¹  would roll the stone off the mouth of the well and water the sheep. Then they would put the stone back in its place over the well’s mouth.

Why do you remain among the sheepfolds, ¹  listening to the shepherds playing their pipes ²  for their flocks? ³  As for the clans of Reuben – there was intense searching of heart.

He took his staff in his hand, picked out five smooth stones from the stream, placed them in the pouch ¹  of his shepherd’s bag, took his sling in hand, and approached the Philistine.

(One of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before the Lord. His name was Doeg the Edomite, who was in charge of Saul’s shepherds.)

Now I hear that they are shearing sheep for you. When your shepherds were with us, we neither insulted them nor harmed them the whole time they were in Carmel.

The Lover to His Beloved: If you do not know, O most beautiful of women, simply follow the tracks of my flock, and pasture your little lambs beside the tents of the shepherds.

The Lord says, ¹  “The leaders of my people are sure to be judged. ²  They were supposed to watch over my people like shepherds watch over their sheep. But they are causing my people to be destroyed and scattered. ³ 

Listen to the cries of anguish of the leaders. Listen to the wails of the shepherds of the flocks. They are wailing because the Lord is about to destroy their lands. ¹ 

“My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds ¹  have allow them to go astray. They have wandered around in the mountains. They have roamed from one mountain and hill to another. ²  They have forgotten their resting place.

Your shepherds ¹  are sleeping, O king of Assyria! Your officers ²  are slumbering! ³  Your people are scattered like sheep ⁴  on the mountains and there is no one to regather them!

I am enraged at the shepherds and will punish the lead-goats. For the Lord who rules over all has brought blessing to his flock, the house of Judah, and will transform them into his majestic warhorse.

Those who buy them ¹  slaughter them and are not held guilty; those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the Lord, for I am rich.’ Their own shepherds have no compassion for them.

When ¹  the angels left them and went back to heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem ²  and see this thing that has taken place, that the Lord ³  has made known to us.”

Give a shepherd’s care to ¹  God’s flock among you, exercising oversight ²  not merely as a duty ³  but willingly under God’s direction, ⁴  not for shameful profit but eagerly.

My dwelling place ¹  is removed and taken away ²  from me like a shepherd’s tent. I rolled up my life like a weaver rolls cloth; ³  from the loom he cuts me off. ⁴  You turn day into night and end my life. ⁵ 

“I, the Lord who rules over all, say: ¹  ‘This place will indeed lie in ruins. There will be no people or animals in it. But there will again be in it and in its towns sheepfolds where shepherds can rest their sheep.

I, the Lord, say that shepherds will once again count their sheep as they pass into the fold. ¹  They will do this in all the towns in the southern hill country, the western foothills, the southern hill country, the territory of Benjamin, the villages surrounding Jerusalem, and the towns of Judah.’ ² 

As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, my sheep have become prey and have become food for all the wild beasts. There was no shepherd, and my shepherds did not search for my flock, but fed themselves and did not feed my sheep,

Shepherd your people with your shepherd’s rod, ¹  the flock that belongs to you, ²  the one that lives alone in a thicket, in the midst of a pastureland. ³  Allow them to graze in Bashan and Gilead, ⁴  as they did in the old days. ⁵