Ezekiel 34: 4The weak you have not strengthened, nor have you healed those who were sick, nor bound up the broken, nor brought back what was driven away, nor sought what was lost; but with force and cruelty you have ruled them
Seeking the lost is mentioned in many biblical text
“”My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have led them astray; They have turned them away on the mountains. They have gone from mountain to hill; They have forgotten their resting place.”
— Jer 50:6 (NKJV)
Mat 18 (NKJV)
¹² What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying?
¹³ And if he should find it, assuredly, I say to you, he rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.
¹⁴ Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.
Luk 15 (NKJV)
⁴ “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?
⁵ And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.
⁶ And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’
⁷ I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.
“for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.””
— Luk 19:10 (NKJV)
The word cruelty is the same word used to compare oppression of the taskmasters who ruled brutally over the Israelites during their bondage in Egypt
Exodus 1 (NKJV)
¹³ So the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor.
¹⁴ And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage—in mortar, in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. All their service in which they made them serve was with rigor.
The mosaic law prohibited this type of treatment of a member of the community of Israel
Lev 25 (NKJV)
⁴³ You shall not rule over him with rigor, but you shall fear your God.
⁴⁶ And you may take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them as a possession; they shall be your permanent slaves. But regarding your brethren, the children of Israel, you shall not rule over one another with rigor.