Open your doors, O Lebanon,
that the fire may devour your cedars!
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!
The sound of the wail of the shepherds,
for their glory is ruined!
The sound of the roar of the lions,
for the thicket of the Jordan is ruined!
Thus said the LORD my God: “Become shepherd of the flock
doomed to slaughter. Those who buy them slaughter them and go
unpunished, and those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the LORD, I
have become rich,’ and their own shepherds have no pity on them.
For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of this land,
declares the LORD. Behold, I will cause each of them to fall into
the hand of his neighbor, and each into the hand of his king, and
they shall crush the land, and I will deliver none from their
hand.”
So I became the shepherd of the flock doomed to be slaughtered by
the sheep traders. And I took two staffs, one I named Favor, the
other I named Union. And I tended the sheep. In one month I
destroyed the three shepherds. But I became impatient with them,
and they also detested me. 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 who are left devour the flesh of one
another.” And I took my staff Favor, and I broke it, annulling the
covenant that I had made with all the peoples. So it was annulled
on that day, and the sheep traders, who were watching me, knew that
it was the word of the LORD. Then I said to them, “If it seems good
to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” And they weighed
out as my wages thirty pieces of silver. Then the LORD said to me,
“Throw it to the potter”—the lordly price at which I was priced by
them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the
house of the LORD, to the potter. Then I broke my second staff
Union, annulling the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
Then the LORD said to me, “Take once more the equipment of a
foolish shepherd. For behold, I am raising up in the land a
shepherd who does not care for those being destroyed, or seek the
young or heal the maimed or nourish the healthy, but devours the
flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hoofs.
“Woe to my worthless shepherd,
who deserts the flock!
May the sword strike his arm
and his right eye!
Let his arm be wholly withered,
his right eye utterly blinded!”
