Zechariah 11

1Open your gates, Lebanon, so that fire may devour your cedars! 2Wail, you junipers, for the cedar has fallen; the mighty trees are ruined! Wail, you oaks of Bashan, for the dense forest has been cut down! 3Hear the shepherds wail, for their splendor is ruined! Hear the young lions roar, for the Jordan’s thickets are laid waste!

4The LORD my God says this: “Shepherd the flock that is marked for slaughter, 5whose buyers slaughter them and go unpunished. Those who sell them say, ‘Praise the LORD, I am rich!’ And their own shepherds show them no pity. 6For I will no longer pity the people who live in the land, declares the LORD. I am about to hand everyone over to their neighbor and to their king. They will crush the land, and I will not rescue anyone from their power.” 7So I became shepherd of the flock marked for slaughter, the most afflicted of the flock. I took two staffs; one I named Favor and the other Union, and I shepherded the flock. 8In one month I got rid of the three shepherds. Then I lost patience with the flock, and they, for their part, loathed me. 9Then I said, “I will not be your shepherd. Let the dying die and the perishing perish, and let those that are left eat one another’s flesh.” 10Then I took my staff named Favor and broke it, to annul the covenant I had made with all the peoples. 11It was broken on that day, and the afflicted of the flock who were watching me understood that this was a word from the LORD. 12Then I said to them, “If you think it right, give me my pay; but if not, keep it.” So they weighed out my pay: thirty pieces of silver. 13Then the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter, that fine price they set on me!” Taking the thirty pieces of silver, I threw them into the house of the LORD, to the potter. 14Then I broke my second staff, Union, to break the bond of brotherhood between Judah and Israel.

15Then the LORD said to me, “Take once more the equipment of a foolish shepherd. 16For I am about to raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for the perishing, or look for the young, or heal the injured, or feed the healthy, but will eat the meat of the fat sheep and tear off their hooves.”

17Woe to the worthless shepherd who deserts the flock! May the sword strike his arm and his right eye! Let his arm wither away, and his right eye go completely blind!