Zechariah 11
1 Open your doors, Lebanon, and fire will devour your cedars.
2 Wail, cypress, for the cedar has fallen, for the majestic trees have been destroyed. Wail, oaks of Bashan, for the dense forest has come down.
3 The wailing of the shepherds is heard, for their glory has been destroyed. The roar of the young lions is heard, for the pride of the Jordan has been destroyed.
4 This is what the LORD my God says: “Tend the flock marked for slaughter.
5 Those who buy them kill them and are not punished; those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the LORD, for I have become rich!’ Their shepherds have no pity on them.
6 For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of the land,” says the LORD. “Look, I am going to hand each person over to his neighbor and to his king. They will crush the land, and I will rescue no one from their hands.”
7 So I tended the flock marked for slaughter—and therefore the most afflicted of the flock. I took two staffs for myself: I called one Favor and the other Union, and I tended the flock.
8 In one month I got rid of the three shepherds. I grew impatient with them, and they also detested me.
9 Then I said, “I will not tend you. Let the one who is dying die; let the one being eliminated be eliminated; and let those who remain eat one another’s flesh.”
10 I took my staff Favor and broke it, to break the covenant I had made with all the peoples.
11 It was broken that day, and so the most afflicted of the flock, who were watching me, knew that this was the word of the LORD.
12 I said to them, “If it seems good to you, give me my wages; if not, keep them.” So they weighed out my wages: thirty pieces of silver.
13 The LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter—that magnificent price at which they valued me.” So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD, for the potter.
14 Then I broke my second staff, Union, to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
15 The LORD said to me, “Take for yourself once more the gear of a foolish shepherd.
16 For I am going to raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for those who are lost. He will not seek the young, heal the injured, or support those who stand; instead, he will eat the flesh of the fattest and tear off their hooves.
17 Woe to the worthless shepherd who abandons the flock! May the sword strike his arm and his right eye! May his arm dry up completely, and his right eye go completely blind.”
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