11 1 Open your doors, Lebanon — let fire devour your cedars! 2 Wail, cypress, for the cedar has fallen, the majestic trees are ruined! Wail, oaks of Bashan, for the thick forest has come down! 3 Listen — the wailing of the shepherds, for their glory is ruined! Listen — the roaring of young lions, for the thickets of the Jordan are ruined!
4 This is what my Father says: "Shepherd the flock marked for slaughter." 5 Those who buy them slaughter them and go unpunished, and those who sell them say, "Blessed be our Father, for I have grown rich!" — while their own shepherds have no compassion on them.
6 For I will no longer have compassion on the inhabitants of the land, declares our Father. I am about to hand everyone over — each into the hands of their neighbor and their king; they will crush the land, and I will not rescue anyone from their hand.
7 So I shepherded the flock marked for slaughter, truly the most afflicted of the flock. And I took two staffs: one I named Favor, the other I named Union; and I shepherded the flock. 8 In one month I removed the three shepherds. My patience with them wore out, and they also loathed me. a a v8 The identity of 'the three shepherds' is unknown; no scholarly view has won consensus. 9 Then I said, "I will not shepherd you. What is dying, let it die; what is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed; and let those who remain devour one another's flesh."
10 Then I took my staff Favor and broke it, annulling the covenant I had made with all the peoples. 11 So it was annulled on that day, and the afflicted of the flock who were watching me knew that this was the word of our Father. 12 Then I said to them, "If you think it's right, give me my wages; but if not, keep them." So they weighed out my wages — thirty pieces of silver. b b v12 These thirty pieces of silver are the very price the New Testament names as the money paid to betray Jesus (Matthew 27:9-10).
13 Then our Father said to me, "Throw it to the potter" — the lordly price at which I was valued by them! So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of our Father, to the potter.
14 Then I broke my second staff, Union, annulling the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
15 Then our Father said to me, "Take up once more the gear of a foolish shepherd."
16 For I am raising up in the land a shepherd who will not attend to the perishing, will not seek the scattered, will not heal the broken, will not sustain the healthy — but will devour the meat of the fat ones and tear off even their hooves. 17 Woe to my worthless shepherd, who deserts the flock! May the sword fall on his arm and on his right eye! Let his arm wither away completely, and his right eye go utterly blind!