The Doomed Flock
1 Open your doors, O Lebanon,
That a fire may feed on your cedars.
2 Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen,
Because the glorious
trees have been destroyed;
Wail, O oaks of Bashan,
For the impenetrable forest has come down.
3 There is a sound of the shepherds wail,
For their glory is ruined;
There is a sound of the young lions roar,
For the pride of the Jordan is ruined.
4 Thus says the L
ORD my God, Pasture the flock
doomed to slaughter.
5 Those who buy them slay them and go unpunished, and
each of those who sell them says, Blessed be the L
ORD, 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 land, declares the L
ORD; but behold, I will cause the men to fall, each into anothers power and into the power of his king; and they will strike the land, and I will not deliver
them from their power.
7 So I pastured the flock
doomed to slaughter, hence the afflicted of the flock. And I took for myself two staffs: the one I called Favor and the other I called Union; so I pastured the flock.
8 Then I annihilated the three shepherds in one month, for my soul was impatient with them, and their soul also was weary of me.
9 Then I said, I will not pasture you. What is to die, let it die, and what is to be annihilated, let it be annihilated; and let those who are left eat one anothers flesh.
10 I took my staff Favor and cut it in pieces, to break my covenant which I had made with all the peoples.
11 So it was broken on that day, and thus the afflicted of the flock who were watching me realized that it was the word of the L
ORD.
12 I said to them, If it is good in your sight, give
me my wages; but if not, never mind! So they weighed out thirty
shekels of silver as my wages.
13 Then the L
ORD said to me, Throw it to the potter,
that magnificent price at which I was valued by them. So I took the thirty
shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the L
ORD.
14 Then I cut in pieces my second staff Union, to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
15 The L
ORD said to me, Take again for yourself the equipment of a foolish shepherd.
16 For behold, I am going to raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for the perishing, seek the scattered, heal the broken, or sustain the one standing, but will devour the flesh of the fat
sheep and tear off their hoofs.
17 Woe to the worthless shepherd
Who leaves the flock!
A sword will be on his arm
And on his right eye!
His arm will be totally withered
And his right eye will be blind.