Oil painting "the good Shepherd"

When I read this text in my youth, in the army service in the armored forces, I loved it forever. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. But the hireling, not the shepherd, whose sheep are not his own, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep, and runs; and the wolf plunders the sheep, and drives them away. But a mercenary runs because he is a mercenary and doesn't care about the sheep.
I am the good shepherd; and I know Mine, and Mine know Me.
I am the good shepherd; and I know Mine, and Mine know Me. As the Father knows Me, so I know the Father; and I lay Down my life for the sheep.
A little later I learned that the sheep is called the Soul, unlike the body is tender and vulnerable and there is nothing offensive about it. Moreover, having read the myths of ancient Greece in my childhood, I knew the gods of cunning and envious, lustful and greedy, and here God is the Word, God is Love, and not weak but ready to sacrifice and even death for their " sheep". How not to love such a shepherd?! I have been going with him for more than 30 years and my confidence is growing every day.
The picture is very expressive, the image of the wolf was difficult to give, the landscape is written from memories of the monasteries in Suzdal, near Vladimir, where I served. In the image of the shepherd, I see all the fathers standing up for their children.