The Doomed Flock

1 Open your doors, Lebanon
so that the fire may devour your cedars.
2 Wail, cypress tree, for the cedar has fallen
because the stately ones are destroyed.
Wail, you oaks of Bashan,
for the lush forest has fallen.
3 The sound of the shepherds wailing!
For their glory is destroyed.
The sound of the young lions roaring!
For the pride of the Jordan is ruined.

4 The Lord my God says: “Feed the flock to be slaughtered. 5 Their buyers slaughter them and go unpunished. Those who sell them say, ‘Praise the Lord, for I am rich,’ and their own shepherds do not pity them.

6 For I will no longer pity the inhabitants of the land,” says the Lord, “but I will deliver the men, each one into his neighbor’s hand, and into the hand of his king. They will strike the land, and from its hand I will not deliver them.”

7 So I fed the flock to be slaughtered, especially the oppressed among the flock. I took for myself two staffs. The one I called “Favor”, and the other I called “Union”, and I fed the flock.

8 I removed the three shepherds in one month, for I was weary of them, and they also loathed me. 9 Then I said, “I will not feed you. That which is dying, let it die; and that which is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let those who are left eat each other’s flesh.”

Thirty Pieces of Silver

10 I took my staff Favor and cut it apart, that I might break my covenant that I had made with all the peoples. 11 It was broken on that day, and thus the poor of the flock that listened to me knew that it was the word of the Lord.

12 I said to them, “If you think it best, give me my wages, and if not, keep them.” So for my wages, they weighed 30 pieces of silver.

13 The Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter, the handsome price by which they valued me!” I took the 30 pieces of silver and threw them to the potter, in the house of the Lord. 14 Then I cut apart my other staff, Union, that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.

15 The Lord said to me, “Take for yourself once again the equipment of a foolish shepherd. 16 For I will raise up a shepherd in the land who will not attend to those who are being cut off, nor will he seek the scattered, nor heal the broken, nor feed that which is healthy, but he will eat the meat of the fattened sheep and will tear their hoofs in pieces.

17 Woe to the worthless shepherd
who leaves the flock!
The sword will be at his arm
and on his right eye.
His arm will be completely withered,
and his right eye will be completely blinded!”

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