Zechariah 11:4–14

The Two Shepherds

⁴The Lord my God said to me, “Act the part of the shepherd^p of a flock of sheep that are going to be butchered. ⁵Their owners kill them and go unpunished. They sell the meat and say, ‘Praise the Lord! We are rich!’ Even their own shepherds have no pity on them.”

⁶(The Lord said, “I will no longer pity anyone on earth. I myself will put all the people in the power of their rulers. Those rulers will devastate the earth, and I will not save it from their power.”)

⁷Those who bought and sold the sheep hired me, and I became the shepherd of the sheep that were going to be butchered. I took two sticks: one I called “Favour”, and the other “Unity”. And I took care of the flock. ⁸I lost patience with three other shepherds, who hated me, and I got rid of them all in a single month. ⁹Then I said to the flock, “I will not be your shepherd any longer. Let those who are to die, die. Let those who are to be destroyed, be destroyed. Those who are left will destroy one another.” ¹⁰Then I took the stick called “Favour” and broke it, to cancel the covenant which the Lord had made with all the nations. ¹¹So the covenant was cancelled on that day. Those who bought and sold the sheep were watching me, and they knew that the Lord was speaking through what I did. ^12*I said to them, “If you are willing, give me my wages. But if not, keep them.” So they paid me 30 pieces of silver as my wages.

^13*The Lord said to me, “Put them in the temple treasury.”^q So I took the 30 pieces of silver—the magnificent sum they thought I was worth—and put them in the temple treasury. ¹⁴Then I broke the second stick, the one called “Unity”, and the unity of Judah and Israel was shattered.