⁴ “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?

¹⁶ I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strays, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.^(A)

¹⁰ For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

God, the True Shepherd

¹¹ For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep and will sort them out.^{(A) 12} As shepherds sort out their flocks when they are among scattered sheep,^[a] so I will sort out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.^(B)

¹² What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? ¹³ And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. ¹⁴ So it is not the will of your^[a] Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.

²⁵ For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.^[a](A)

³¹ You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture,^[a] and I am your God, says the Lord God.^(A)

¹¹ He said to them, “Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out?^(A)