10:13a–b

The man runs away because he is a hired servant and is unconcerned for the sheep: The Greek text is more literally “because he is a hired hand and does not care about the sheep.” The word because introduces the reason why the hired man runs away (flees) (10:12a–b). So the Berean Standard Bible begins a new sentence here and supplies the words The man runs away. In many languages it may be natural to supply a similar clause. In the following examples the words that were supplied are underlined:

He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. (English Standard Version)
-or-

The man runs away because he is a hired man and cares nothing for the sheep. (Revised English Bible)
-or-

The hired hand runs away because he’s working only for the money and doesn’t really care about the sheep. (New Living Translation (2004))

because he is a hired servant and is unconcerned for the sheep: The word because introduces the reason the man ran away: he does not care about protecting the sheep. He is not concerned about their safety. He only took care of the sheep because he wanted his wages. You may want to make this implied information explicit. For example:

The hired hand is concerned about what he’s going to get paid and not about the sheep. (God’s Word)

is unconcerned for the sheep: The English phrase is unconcerned for is confusing here because it has more than one possible sense. In some contexts it would mean that the hired man did not feed or look after the sheep. But that was his job, and that is not what the Greek phrase means. What the Greek means is that the hired man was not concerned about the sheep. They were not important to him, so when danger came he abandoned them. Here are other ways to translate this phrase:

cares nothing for the sheep (New International Version)
-or-
is not concerned about the sheep (NET Bible Bible)
-or-
the sheep do not really matter to him
-or-
the sheep are not important to him

General Comment on 10:13a–b

In some languages it may be natural to reverse the order of 10:13a–b. For example:

Because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep, he runs away. (NET Bible Bible)

General Comment on 10:12–13

Jesus was talking about hired workers in general. So in some languages it may be natural to use plural forms, as the Contemporary English Version has done. The Contemporary English Version translation also provides a model for how to break up this long sentence into several shorter sentences:

Hired workers are not like the shepherd. They don’t own the sheep, and when they see a wolf coming, they run off and leave the sheep. Then the wolf attacks and scatters the flock. Hired workers run away because they don’t care about the sheep. (Contemporary English Version)

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