Zechariah 11

¹¹Open your doors, O Lebanon,

so that fire may devour your cedars!^*

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

for the glorious trees are ruined!

Wail, oaks of Bashan,

for the thick forest has been felled!^*

³Listen, the wail of the shepherds,

for their glory is despoiled!

Listen, the roar of the lions,

for the thickets of the Jordan are destroyed!^*

Two Kinds of Shepherds

⁴“Thus says the Lord my God: Be a shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter.^{* 5}Those who buy them kill them and go unpunished, and those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the Lord, for I have become rich,’ and their own shepherds have no pity on them.^{* 6}For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of the earth, says the Lord. I will cause them, every one, to fall each into the hand of a neighbor and each into the hand of the king, and they shall devastate the earth, and I will deliver no one from their hand.”^*

⁷So on behalf of the sheep merchants,ⁿ I became the shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter. I took two staffs; one I named Favor, the other I named Unity, and I tended the sheep.^{* 8}In one month I disposed of the three shepherds, for I had become impatient with them, and they also detested me.^{* 9}So I said, “I will not be your shepherd. What is to die, let it die; what is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed; and let those that are left devour the flesh of one another!” ¹⁰I took my staff Favor and broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with all the peoples.^{* 11}So it was annulled on that day, and the sheep merchants^o who were watching me knew that it was the word of the Lord.^{* 12}I then said to them, “If it seems right to you, give me my wages, but if not, keep them.” So they weighed out as my wages thirty shekels of silver.^{* 13}Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it into the treasury”^p—this lordly price at which I was valued by them. So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them into the treasury^q in the house of the Lord.^{* 14}Then I broke my second staff Unity, annulling the family ties between Judah and Israel.

¹⁵Then the Lord said to me: “Take once more the implements of a worthless shepherd.^{* 16}For I am now raising up in the land a shepherd who does not care for the perishing, or seek the wandering,^r or heal the maimed, or nourish the healthy,^s but devours the flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hoofs.

¹⁷Oh, my worthless shepherd,

who deserts the flock!

May the sword strike his arm

and his right eye!

Let his arm be completely withered,

his right eye utterly blinded!”^*