“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.

Take the choice bone of the flock, heap up bones under it; boil rapidly, and boil its bones in it.

I will make Rabbah a pasture for camels and Ammon ¹  a resting place for sheep. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

“‘As for you, my sheep, this is what the sovereign Lord says: Look, I am about to judge between one sheep and another, between rams and goats.

“This is what the sovereign Lord says: I will allow the house of Israel to ask me to do this for them: ¹  I will multiply their people like sheep. ² 

“For seven days you will provide every day a goat for a sin offering; a young bull and a ram from the flock, both without blemish, will be provided.

and one sheep from each flock of two hundred, from the watered places of Israel, for a grain offering, burnt offering, and peace offering, to make atonement for them, declares the sovereign Lord.

Listen to the cattle groan! ¹  The herds of livestock wander around in confusion ²  because they have no pasture. Even the flocks of sheep are suffering.

They lie around on beds decorated with ivory, ¹  and sprawl out on their couches. They eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the middle of the pen.

I will certainly gather all of you, O Jacob, I will certainly assemble those Israelites who remain. ¹  I will bring them together like sheep in a fold, ²  like a flock in the middle of a pasture; ³  they will be so numerous that they will make a lot of noise. ⁴ 

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 

On that day the Lord their God will deliver them as the flock of his people, for they are the precious stones of a crown sparkling over his land.

So it was annulled that very day, and then the most afflicted of the flock who kept faith with me knew that that was the word of the Lord.

Woe to the worthless shepherd who abandons the flock! May a sword fall on his arm and his right eye! May his arm wither completely away, and his right eye become completely blind!”

He saw ¹  in the field a well with ²  three flocks of sheep lying beside it, because the flocks were watered from that well. Now ³  a large stone covered the mouth of the well.

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.

So Laban asked, ¹  “What should I give you?” “You don’t need to give me a thing,” ²  Jacob replied, ³  “but if you agree to this one condition, ⁴  I will continue to care for ⁵  your flocks and protect them:

Let me walk among ¹  all your flocks today and remove from them every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-colored lamb, ²  and the spotted or speckled goats. ³  These animals will be my wages. ⁴ 

Then he said, ‘Observe ¹  that all the male goats mating with ²  the flock are streaked, speckled, or spotted, for I have observed all that Laban has done to you.

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!