1Open your doors, O Lebanon, that fire may devour your cedars!
2Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen, for the majestic ones are ruined! Wail, O oaks of Bashan, for the impenetrable forest has come down!
3A sound — the wail of the shepherds, for their glory is ruined! A sound — the roar of the young lions, for the pride of the Jordan is ruined!
4Thus says Yahweh my God: Shepherd the flock destined for slaughter,
5whose buyers slaughter them and go unpunished, and whose sellers say, ‘Blessed be Yahweh, for I have grown rich!’ — and their own shepherds have no pity on them.
6For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of the land — declares Yahweh. Behold, I am handing over mankind, each into the hand of his neighbor and into the hand of his king; and they will crush the land, and I will not deliver from their hand.
7So I shepherded the flock of slaughter, even the afflicted of the flock. And I took for myself two staffs; one I named Favor, and the other I named Union, and I shepherded the flock.
8And I destroyed the three shepherds in one month, for my soul grew impatient with them, and their soul also loathed me.
9Then I said, ‘I will not shepherd you. Let the dying die, and let the perishing perish, and let those that remain devour one another’s flesh.’
10And I took my staff, Favor, and cut it in two, to break my covenant that I had made with all the peoples.
11So it was broken on that day, and thus the afflicted of the flock who were watching me knew that it was the word of Yahweh.
12Then I said to them, ‘If it seems good in your eyes, give me my wages; but if not, refrain.’ So they weighed out my wages, thirty pieces of silver.
13And Yahweh said to me, ‘Throw it to the potter — the magnificent price at which I was valued by them!’ So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of Yahweh, to the potter.
14Then I cut in two my second staff, Union, to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
15And Yahweh said to me, ‘Take up again for yourself the equipment of a foolish shepherd.
16For behold, I am raising up a shepherd in the land who will not attend to the perishing, will not seek the young, will not heal the injured, will not sustain the one that stands; but he will eat the flesh of the fat ones and tear off their hooves.
17Woe to the worthless shepherd who abandons the flock! A sword upon his arm and upon his right eye! May his arm utterly wither and his right eye be utterly darkened!
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