Zechariah 11

1Open your doors, Lebanon, that fire may devour your cedars.

2Howl, fir tree, for the cedar has fallen, because the majestic ones are destroyed; howl, oaks of Bashan, for the fenced vintage forest has come down.

3The sound of the shepherds howling—for their glory is devastated; the sound of the young lions roaring—for the pride of the Jordan is devastated.

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

5Whose buyers slaughter them and incur no guilt, their sellers declare, "Blessed be Yahweh—I am rich"—yet their own shepherds show them no pity.

6For I will show no more compassion to the land's dwellers, says Yahweh; see, I am delivering humankind, each one, into his fellow's hand and into his king's hand, and they will crush the land, and from their hand I will not rescue them.

7I pastured the flock of slaughter, even the afflicted of the flock, took two staffs for myself—one I called Favor, the other Union—and pastured the flock.

8I did away with three shepherds in one month; my soul grew impatient with them, and their soul also detested me.

9Then I said, "I will not shepherd you. Let the dying die, let the perishing perish, and let the survivors each eat the flesh of her companion."

10I took my staff, Favor, and cut it in two to break my covenant that I had cut with all the nations.

11It broke that day, and so the poor of the flock who watched me knew that it was the word of Yahweh.

12I said to them, “If it is good in your eyes, give my wages; but if not, cease.” So they weighed out thirty pieces of silver as my wages.

13Yahweh replied to me, "Hurl it to the potter—the splendid price at which I was prized by them!" I took the thirty pieces of silver and hurled them to the potter in the house of Yahweh.

14I broke my other staff, the Bonds, to sever the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.

15Yahweh said to me, "Take for yourself again the gear of a foolish shepherd."

16For look, I am raising up a shepherd in the land who will not visit the cut-off ones, neither seek the youth nor heal the broken one, nor sustain the standing one, but will devour the flesh of the fat and break their hooves.

17Woe to the worthless shepherd who forsakes the flock! Sword against his arm and his right eye—his arm will wither away, and his right eye will fail utterly.