Zechariah 11

¹ Open your gateways, Lebanon, and the fire shal burn down your cedar trees!

² Wail, juniper, for the cedar tree has fal en, the majestic ones have been ravaged! Wail, oaks ofBashan, for the impenetrable forest has been fel ed!

³ The sound of the wailing of shepherds! Their majesty has been ravaged. The sound of the roaring ofyoung lions! The pride of the Jordan has been ravaged.

⁴ Yahweh my God says this, 'Pasture the sheep for slaughter,

⁵ whose buyers kil them and go unpunished, whose sel ers say of them, "Blessed be Yahweh; now I amrich!" and whose own shepherds show them no pity.

⁶ For I shal show no further pity for the inhabitants of the country -- Yahweh declares! Instead, I shalput everyone into the clutches of a neighbour, into the clutches of the king. They wil crush the country and I shalnot rescue anyone from their clutches.'

⁷ Then I pastured for slaughter the sheep belonging to the sheep-dealers. I took two staves: the one Ical ed 'Goodwill', the other 'Couplers'; and I pastured the sheep myself,

⁸ getting rid of three shepherds in one month. But I lost patience with them, and they equal y detestedme.

⁹ I then said, 'I am not going to pasture you any more; the one doomed to die can die; the one doomedto perish can perish; and the rest can devour one another.'

¹⁰ I then took my staff, 'Goodwil ', and broke it in half, to break my covenant, which I had made with althe peoples.

¹¹ When it was broken, that day the sheep-dealers, who were watching me, realised that this had beena word of Yahweh.

¹² I then said to them, 'If you see fit, give me my wages; if not, never mind.' So they weighed out mywages: thirty shekels of silver.

¹³ Yahweh said to me, 'Throw it to the smelter, this princely sum at which they have valued me!' Takingthe thirty shekels of silver, I threw them into the Temple of Yahweh, for the smelter.

¹⁴ I then broke my second staff, 'Couplers,' in half, to rupture the brotherly relationship between Judahand Israel.

¹⁵ Next, Yahweh said to me, 'This time, take the gear of a good-for-nothing shepherd.

¹⁶ For I am now going to raise a shepherd in this country, who wil not bother about the lost, who will notgo in search of the stray, who wil not heal the injured, who wil not support the swollen, but who wil eat the meatof the fat ones, tearing off their very hoofs.

¹⁷ Disaster to the shepherd who deserts his flock! May the sword attack his arm and his right eye! Mayhis arm shrivel completely and his right eye be total y blinded!'