Luke 19:10
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The context
The close of the Zacchaeus story. A chief tax collector has climbed a tree to see Jesus, has been invited down and hosted him, and has announced a fourfold restitution. The crowd grumbles that Jesus is a guest of a sinner, and verse 10 answers the grumbling.
What it establishes
It establishes that the saying interprets the whole episode: the seeking is deliberate and the object is the lost. Luke places it at the end of a story that shows what seeking looks like in practice rather than stating it in the abstract.
What it does not establish
It does not define who counts as lost. The verse uses the term without a list, and Luke's Gospel applies it to tax collectors, sinners, and the ritually careless. Whether the category is a fixed class or a description of a condition is left open by the sentence.
Short note, first pass, October 2026. Corrections welcome.
Cited in these answers
Part of Scripture, Opened — the exegetical layer behind every citation on this site. Scripture quotations are from the ESV.