Zechariah 11

CHAPTER 11

Woe to the Worthless Shepherd

¹Open your doors, O Lebanon,

That a ^afire may consume your ^bcedars.

²Wail, O ¹cypress, for the cedar has fallen,

Because the mighty trees have been destroyed;

Wail, O oaks of Bashan,

For the ²impenetrable forest has come down.

³There is a sound of the shepherds’ ^awail,

For their might is destroyed;

There is a ^bsound of the young lions’ roar,

For the ¹pride of the Jordan is destroyed.

⁴Thus says Yahweh my God, “Shepherd the flock doomed to ^aslaughter.

⁵“Those who buy them slaughter them and are not ^aheld guilty, and each of those who sell them says, ‘Blessed be Yahweh. Indeed, ^bI have become rich!’ And their ^cown shepherds do not spare them.

⁶“For I will ^ano longer spare the inhabitants of the land,” declares Yahweh; “but behold, I will ^bcause the men to ¹fall, each into another’s hand and into the hand of his king; and they will crush the land, and I will ^cnot deliver them from their hand.”

⁷So I ^ashepherded the flock doomed to slaughter—¹hence the ^bafflicted of the flock. And I took for myself two ^cstaffs: the one I called ^2dFavor, and the other I called ^3eUnion; so I shepherded the flock.

⁸Then I annihilated the three shepherds in ^aone month, for my soul was impatient with them, and their soul also ¹was weary of me.

⁹Then I said, “I will not shepherd you. What is to ^adie, ¹let it die, and what is to be annihilated, ²let it be annihilated; and ³let those who remain consume one another’s flesh.”

¹⁰And I took my staff ^1aFavor and cut it in pieces, to ^2bbreak my covenant which I had cut with all the peoples.

¹¹So it was ¹broken on that day, and ²thus the ^aafflicted of the flock who were watching me knew that it was the word of Yahweh.

¹²And I said to them, “If it is good in your sight, give me my ^awages; but if not, ¹never mind!” So they weighed out ^bthirty ²shekels of silver as my wages.

¹³Then Yahweh said to me, “Throw it to the ^apotter, that valuable price at which I was valued by them.” So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of Yahweh.

¹⁴Then I cut in pieces my second staff ^1aUnion, to ^bbreak the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.

¹⁵Then Yahweh said to me, “Take again for yourself the equipment of a ^1afoolish shepherd.

¹⁶“For behold, I am going to raise up a shepherd in the land who will ^anot care for those who face annihilation, seek the young, heal the broken, or sustain the one standing, but will ^bconsume the flesh of the fat sheep and tear off their hoofs.

¹⁷“^aWoe to the worthless shepherd

Who forsakes the flock!

A ^bsword will be on his arm

And on his right eye!

His ^carm will be totally dried up,

And his right eye will be utterly dimmed.”