Zechariah 11:4–14

⁴Thus said the Lord my God: ^o“Become shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter. ^5pThose who buy them slaughter them and go unpunished, and those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the Lord, ^qI have become rich,’ and their own shepherds have no pity on them. ⁶For ^rI will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of this land, declares the Lord. Behold, I will cause each of them to fall into the hand of his neighbor, and each into the hand of his king, and they shall crush the land, and I will deliver none from their hand.”

^7sSo I became the shepherd of the flock doomed to be slaughtered by the sheep traders. And I took two staffs, one I named ^uFavor, the other I named ^vUnion. ^sAnd I tended the sheep. ⁸In one month ^wI destroyed the three shepherds. But I became impatient with them, and they also detested me. ⁹So I said, “I will not be your shepherd. ^xWhat is to die, let it die. What is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed. And let those who are left devour the flesh of one another.” ¹⁰And I took ^ymy staff Favor, and I broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with all the peoples. ¹¹So it was annulled on that day, and the sheep traders, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the Lord. ¹²Then I said to them, “If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” And they weighed out as my wages ^zthirty pieces of silver. ¹³Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—^athe lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the ^zthirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord, to the potter. ¹⁴Then I broke ^bmy second staff Union, annulling the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.