45 Bible Verses about Shepherds, As Occupations

And the men [are] shepherds, for they are men of livestock, and they have brought their flocks and their cattle and all that they have.'

In grassy pastures he makes me lie down; by quiet waters he leads me.

And [when] all the flocks were gathered there, they rolled away the stone from the mouth of the well. And they watered the sheep and returned the stone upon the mouth of the well to its place.

And when the servants of Isaac dug in the valley, they found a well of fresh water there. Then the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with the herdsmen of Isaac, saying, "The water is ours." And he called the name of the well Esek, because they contended with him. And they dug another well, and they quarreled over it also. And he called its name Sitnah.read more.
Then he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. And he called its name Rehoboth, and said, "Now Yahweh has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land."

" 'If a man grazes [his livestock] in a field or a vineyard and he releases his livestock and it grazes in the field of another, he will make restitution [from] the best of his field and the best of his vineyard.

But the Lord answered and said to him, "Hypocrites! Does not each one of you untie his ox or [his] donkey from the feeding trough on the Sabbath and lead [it] away to water [it]?

Now when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon [son] of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." He said to him, "Feed my lambs!" He said to him again a second time, "Simon [son] of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." He said to him, "Shepherd my sheep!" He said to him a third [time], "Simon [son] of John, do you love me?" Peter was distressed because he said to him a third [time], "Do you love me?" and he said to him, "Lord, you know everything! You know that I love you!" Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep!

Hear the word of Yahweh, nations, and declare in the coastlands from afar, and say, "The scatterer of Israel will gather him, and he will keep him as a shepherd his flock.

{Then she bore} his brother Abel. And Abel became a keeper of sheep, and Cain became a tiller of the ground.

Even when I walk in a dark valley, I fear no evil because you [are] with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me

And David said to Saul, "Your servant has been a shepherd of the flock for his father. If the lion or the bear would come and carry off a sheep from the group, I would go out after it and strike it down and rescue [the sheep] from its mouth. If it rose against me, I would grab [it] by its beard and strike it down and kill it. Your servant has struck down both the lion and the bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he defied the battle lines of the living God."read more.
And David said, "Yahweh, who rescued me from the hand of the lion and from the hand of the bear, will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine!" Then Saul said to David, "Go and may Yahweh be with you!"

For this one the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. Whenever he sends out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.

And Moses was a shepherd with the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the west [of] the desert, and he came to the mountain of God, to Horeb.

You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather [the] lambs in his arm, and he will carry [them] in his bosom; he will lead those who nurse.

My people have become lost sheep, their shepherds have caused them to go astray. They led them away [to the] mountains. From mountain to hill they have gone, they have forgotten their resting place.

For this one the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

[He] counts [the] number of the stars; he gives names to all of them.

Lift your eyes up [on] high, and see! Who created these? The one who brings out their host by number. He calls all them by name. Because [he is] great of power and mighty of power, no man is missing.

And all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them from one another like a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

And the man said, "They have moved on from here, for I heard [them] saying, 'Let us go to Dothan.'" Then Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothan.

And there were shepherds in the same region, living out of doors and keeping watch, guarding over their flock by night.

Then he will kindle a fire in the {temples} of the gods of Egypt, and he will burn them and take them captive. And he will wrap up the land of Egypt just as the shepherd wraps up his cloak. And he will go forth from there in peace.

Now I have heard that {you have shearers}. Now while your shepherds [were] with us, we did not mistreat them, and nothing of theirs [was] missing, all the days they were in Carmel. Ask your servants and they will tell you! Let the young men find favor in your eyes because we have come on a feast day. Please give {whatever you have on hand} for your servants and for your son David."

I will not take from your house a bull [or] from your stalls a he-goat,

Though the fig tree [does] not blossom, nor there be fruit on the vines; the yield of [the] olive tree fails, and the cultivated fields do not yield food; [the] flock is cut off from the animal pen, and there is no cattle in the stalls,

"Truly, truly I say to you, the one who does not enter through the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up at some other place--that one is a thief and a robber.

And Jacob separated the lambs and turned the faces of the flocks toward the streaked and all the dark-colored in Laban's flocks. And he put his own herds apart, and did not put them with the flocks of Laban.

And she put the skins of the young goats over his hands and over the smooth [part of] his neck.

{How long} will the land mourn, and the vegetation of every field dry up, because of the wickedness of those who live in it? [The] animals and [the] birds are swept away, because they have said, "He does not see our future."

Therefore the land mourns, and all [those] living in it languish with the animals of the field, and the birds of the heaven, and even the fish of the sea are being swept away.

Although he may flourish among reeds, [the] east wind will come, a wind of Yahweh rising from [the] desert; his fountain will dry up, his spring will be parched. It will plunder his treasury, every object of desire.

The seeds shrivel under their clods; the storehouses are desolate. The grain storage places are destroyed because grain has dried out. How [the] beasts groan; the herds of cattle wander around because there is no pasture for them; [the] flocks of sheep are in distress. To you, Yahweh, I cry out, because fire has devoured the pastures of the desert, and flames burned all the trees of the field.read more.
Also, the beasts of [the] field long for you, because the courses of water are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the desert.

And he said, "Yahweh roars from Zion and he utters his voice from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds wither and the top of Carmel dries up."

even though the men [were] very good to us; we were not mistreated and did not miss anything all the days we went about with them {while we were} in the field.

Then his livestock came to be seven thousand sheep and goats and three thousand camels and five hundred pairs of oxen and five hundred female donkeys, and he had very many slaves, and that man was greater than all the people of the east.

Now there was a man in Maon, whose business [was] in Carmel. The man was very rich and {owned} three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. {Now} the shearing of his sheep [was taking place] in Carmel.

Now Mesha king of Moab was a sheep breeder, and he used to deliver to the king of Israel a hundred thousand male lambs and a hundred thousand wool rams.

The words of Amos, who was among the shepherds from Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah the king of Judah and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Jehoash, two years {before} the earthquake.

Then Samuel said to Jesse, "{Are all the young men here}?" And he said, "The youngest still remains, but look, he [is] shepherding the flock." And Samuel said to Jesse, "Send and bring him, for we cannot {sit down} until he comes here."

His oldest brother Eliab heard while he was speaking to the men, {and Eliab became very angry against David} and said, "Why have you come down today, and with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your presumptuousness and the evil of your heart! For you have come down in order to see the battle!"

I brought no mangled carcass to you--I bore its loss. From my hand you sought it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night.

Thus says Yahweh, "Just as the shepherd rescues two legs or a piece of an ear from the mouth of the lion, so shall the {people} of Israel who dwell in Samaria, with the corner of a couch and the damask of a bed."

What do you think? If {a certain man has} a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go [and] look for the one that wandered away?

"What man of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the grassland and go after the one that was lost until he finds it?