Deuteronomy 30:3-4

30:3 the Lord your God will reverse your captivity and have pity on you. He will turn and gather you from all the peoples among whom he ¹  has scattered you. 30:4 Even if your exiles are in the most distant land, ²  from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back.

Nehemiah 1:9

1:9 But if you repent ³  and obey ⁴  my commandments and do them, then even if your dispersed people are in the most remote location, ⁵  I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen for my name to reside.’

Jeremiah 3:14

3:14 “Come back to me, my wayward sons,” says the Lord, “for I am your true master. ⁶  If you do, ⁷  I will take one of you from each town and two of you from each family group, and I will bring you back to Zion.

Amos 9:9

9:9 “For look, I am giving a command

and I will shake the family of Israel together with all the nations.

It will resemble a sieve being shaken,

when not even a pebble falls to the ground. ⁸ 

Matthew 18:12-14

18:12 What do you think? If someone ⁹  owns a hundred ¹⁰  sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go look for the one that went astray? ¹¹  18:13 And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, ¹²  he will rejoice more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray. 18:14 In the same way, your Father in heaven is not willing that one of these little ones be lost.

Luke 15:4

15:4 “Which one ¹³  of you, if he has a hundred ¹⁴  sheep and loses one of them, would not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture ¹⁵  and go look for ¹⁶  the one that is lost until he finds it? ¹⁷ 

John 6:37

6:37 Everyone whom the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never send away. ¹⁸ 

John 10:16

10:16 I have ¹⁹  other sheep that do not come from ²⁰  this sheepfold. ²¹  I must bring them too, and they will listen to my voice, ²²  so that ²³  there will be one flock and ²⁴  one shepherd.

[30:3]  ¹ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[30:4]  ² tn Heb “are at the farthest edge of the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

[1:9]  ³ tn Heb “turn to me.”

[1:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “keep.” See the note on the word “obey” in Neh 1:5.

[1:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “at the end of the heavens.”

[3:14]  ⁶ tn Or “I am your true husband.”

[3:14]  ⁷ tn The words, “If you do” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection of the Hebrew verb with the preceding.

[9:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “like being shaken with a sieve, and a pebble does not fall to the ground.” The meaning of the Hebrew word צְרוֹר (tsÿror), translated “pebble,” is unclear here. In 2 Sam 17:13 it appears to refer to a stone. If it means “pebble,” then the sieve described in v. 6 allows the grain to fall into a basket while retaining the debris and pebbles. However, if one interprets צְרוֹר as a “kernel of grain” (cf. NASB, NIV, NKJV, NLT) then the sieve is constructed to retain the grain and allow the refuse and pebbles to fall to the ground. In either case, the simile supports the last statement in v. 8 by making it clear that God will distinguish between the righteous (the grain) and the wicked (the pebbles) when he judges, and will thereby preserve a remnant in Israel. Only the sinners will be destroyed (v. 10).

[18:12]  ⁹ tn Grk “a certain man.” The Greek word ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") is used here in a somewhat generic sense.

[18:12]  ¹⁰ sn This individual with a hundred sheep is a shepherd of modest means, as flocks often had up to two hundred head of sheep.

[18:12]  ¹¹ sn Look for the one that went astray. The parable pictures God’s pursuit of the sinner. On the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, see John 10:1-18.

[18:13]  ¹² tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”

[15:4]  ¹³ tn Grk “What man.” The Greek word ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") is used here in a somewhat generic sense.

[15:4]  ¹⁴ sn This individual with a hundred sheep is a shepherd of modest means, as flocks often had up to two hundred head of sheep.

[15:4]  ¹⁵ tn Or “desert,” but here such a translation might suggest neglect of the 99 sheep left behind.

[15:4]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “go after,” but in contemporary English the idiom “to look for” is used to express this.

[15:4]  ¹⁷ sn Until he finds it. The parable pictures God’s pursuit of the sinner. On the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, see John 10:1-18.

[6:37]  ¹⁸ tn Or “drive away”; Grk “cast out.”

[10:16]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “And I have.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.

[10:16]  ²⁰ tn Or “that do not belong to”; Grk “that are not of.”

[10:16]  ²¹ sn The statement I have other sheep that do not come from this sheepfold almost certainly refers to Gentiles. Jesus has sheep in the fold who are Jewish; there are other sheep which, while not of the same fold, belong to him also. This recalls the mission of the Son in 3:16-17, which was to save the world – not just the nation of Israel. Such an emphasis would be particularly appropriate to the author if he were writing to a non-Palestinian and primarily non-Jewish audience.

[10:16]  ²² tn Grk “they will hear my voice.”

[10:16]  ²³ tn Grk “voice, and.”

[10:16]  ²⁴ tn The word “and” is not in the Greek text, but must be supplied to conform to English style. In Greek it is an instance of asyndeton (omission of a connective), usually somewhat emphatic.