The Flock Doomed to Slaughter

Zechariah 11

¹ Open your doors, O Lebanon,

so that fire may devour your cedars!
² Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen,
for the glorious trees are ruined!
Wail, oaks of Bashan,
for the thick forest has been felled!
³ Listen, the wail of the shepherds,
for their glory is despoiled!
Listen, the roar of the lions,
for the thickets of the Jordan are destroyed!

⁴ Thus said 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.

⁷ So, on behalf of the sheep merchants, 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!" ¹⁰ I 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, 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" ₁ --this lordly price at which I was valued by them. So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them into the treasury ₁ in the house of the Lord. ¹⁴ Then I broke my second staff Unity, annulling the family ties between Judah and Israel.

¹⁵ Then 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, ₃ or heal the maimed, or nourish the healthy, ₄ but devours the flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hoofs.

¹⁷ Oh, 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!