Zechariah 11

1Open your doors, Lebanon, so that fire may devour your cedars!

2Wail, you cypress, for the cedar has fallen; the majestic trees are destroyed! Wail, oaks of Bashan, for the dense forest has been cut down!

3Listen to the wailing of the shepherds, for their splendor is destroyed! Listen to the roaring of the young lions, for the thickets of the Jordan are destroyed!

4This is what Yahweh my God says: Shepherd the flock marked for slaughter.

5Those who buy them slaughter them and go unpunished. Those who sell them say, “Blessed be Yahweh, for I have become rich!” Their own shepherds have no pity on them.

6For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of the land, declares Yahweh. I am about to hand everyone over to his neighbor and to his king. They will crush the land, and I will not rescue anyone from their hands.

7So I shepherded the flock marked for slaughter, the afflicted of the flock. I took two staffs; one I called Favor and the other I called Union, and I shepherded the flock.

8In one month I got rid of the three shepherds. I grew impatient with them, and they also detested me.

9Then I said, “I will not be your shepherd. What is dying, let it die, and what is perishing, let it perish. Let those that are left devour one another’s flesh.”

10Then I took my staff called Favor and broke it, breaking the covenant I had made with all the peoples.

11It was broken on that day, and so the afflicted of the flock who were watching me knew that it was the word of Yahweh.

12I said to them, “If it seems right to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” So they weighed out my wages, thirty pieces of silver.

13Then Yahweh said to me, “Throw it to the potter—the magnificent price at which they valued me!” So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of Yahweh, to the potter.

14Then I broke my second staff, called Union, breaking the bond of brotherhood between Judah and Israel.

15Then Yahweh said to me, “Take again the equipment of a foolish shepherd.

16For I am about to raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for those that are perishing, or seek 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! A sword against his arm and against his right eye! His arm will wither completely, and his right eye will be totally blinded.”