ISRAEL’S SHEPHERDS: GOOD AND BAD

11 Open your gates, Lebanon,

and fire will consume your cedars.o

2 Wail, cypress,p for the cedar has fallen;

the glorious trees are destroyed!

Wail, oaks of Bashan,q

for the stately forest has fallen!

3 Listen to the wailr of the shepherds,s

for their glory is destroyed.

Listen to the roar of young lions,t

for the thickets of the Jordanu areG destroyed.

4 The Lord my God says this: “Shepherd the flock intended for slaughter. 5 Those who buy them slaughter them but are not punished.v Those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the Lord because I have become rich!’ Even their own shepherds have no compassion for them. 6 Indeed, I will no longer have compassion on the inhabitants of the land”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “Instead, I will turn everyone over to his neighbor and his king. They will devastate the land, and I will not rescue it from their hand.”w

7 So I shepherded the flock intended for slaughter, the oppressed of the flock.H I took two staffs, calling one Favorx and the other Union, and I shepherded the flock. 8 In one month I got rid of three shepherds. I became impatient with them, and they also detested me.