Zechariah 11

1Open your doors, Lebanon, so that fire may consume your cedars.

2Wail, cypress, for the cedar has fallen, for the majestic ones have been destroyed. Wail, oaks of Bashan, for the thick forest has come down.

3The sound of the shepherds’ wailing, for their splendor is ruined; the sound of the young lions’ roaring, for the majesty of the Jordan is ruined.

4Thus says Yahweh my God: Shepherd the flock for slaughter.

5whose buyers slaughter them and are not held guilty, and whose sellers say, “Blessed be Yahweh, for I have become rich,” and their shepherds have no compassion on them.

6For I will no longer have compassion on the inhabitants of the land, declares Yahweh. Behold, I am handing over the people, 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 it from their hand.

7So I shepherded the flock doomed to slaughter, namely the afflicted of the flock. Then I took for myself two staffs; one I named Favor, and the other I named Union, and I shepherded the flock.

8So I removed the three shepherds in one month, and my soul grew impatient with them, and their soul also loathed me.

9So I said, “I will not shepherd you. Let the dying die, and let the perishing perish. And let those who remain each devour the flesh of the other.”

10Then 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 is good in your eyes, give me my wages; but if not, refrain.” 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 I was valued by them.” So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw it into the house of Yahweh, to the potter.

14Then I cut in pieces my second staff, Union, to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.

15Then Yahweh said to me, “Take 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 straying, will not heal the broken, will not sustain the healthy, but will eat the flesh of the fat ones and tear off their hooves.

17Woe to the worthless shepherd, who abandons the flock! A sword is against his arm and against his right eye. His arm will completely wither, and his right eye will be utterly dimmed.