You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock.
You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally.
So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals.
My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.
‘Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: 8 As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because my flock lacks a shepherd and so has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than for my flock,
therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord:
This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them.
Ezekiel 34: 2-10
Teach children how they should live, and they will remember it all their lives.
Proverbs 22:6
It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.
Luke 17:2
And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.
"If anyone causes one of these little ones--those who believe in me--to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come!
Matt 18:5-7
Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.
Colossians 3:21
I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one I have written to you, children, because you know the Father. I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.
1 John 2:13-14
It should be remembered that only prayer, repentance, and faith in the Lord will fix this problem in the Church and in the culture.
As noted throughout Scripture, when the people abuse God's gifts and turn their backs on the Lord, he visits chastisements upon them in hope of getting their attention.
As the people persist in their sinful ways, the chastisements progress to destruction.