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so that fire may devour your cedars!
2 Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen;
the stately trees are ruined!
Wail, O oaks of Bashan,
for the dense forest has been cut down!
3 Listen to the wail of the shepherds,
for the glory of their lush pastures are destroyed!
Listen to the roar of the lions,
for the thickets of the Jordan are ruined!
4 This is what the Lord my God says: “Pasture the flock intended for slaughter. 5 Their buyers slaughter them, but go unpunished. Those who sell them say, ‘Praise the Lord, for I have become rich! Even their own shepherds have no pity for them. 6 For I will no longer have pity on the people of the land,” declares the Lord. “Instead, will give everyone into the hands of his neighbour and to his king. They will devastate the land, and I will not deliver them from their hands.”
7 So I pastured the flock marked for slaughter, especially the poor of the flock. Then I took two staffs; one I called Favour, and the other I called Union, and I pastured the flock. 8 In one month I got rid of the three shepherds, for I had grown weary of the flock, and they detested me also.
9 Then I said, “I will not be your shepherd. Let what is dying die, and what is perishing perish, and let what remains devour one another’s flesh.”
10 Then I took my staff called Favour and broke it in two, annulling the covenant I had made with all the peoples. 11 It was annulled on that day, and so the afflicted of the flock who were watching me knew that it was the word of the Lord.
12 I told them, “If it seems right to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” So they weighed out for my wages thirty pieces of silver.
13 And the Lord said, “Throw it to the potter”—the handsome price I was valued by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the House of the Lord, to the potter.
14 Then I broke in two my other staff called Union, annulling the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
15 Then the Lord said to me, “Take the implements of the worthless shepherd. 16 For I am going to raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for those wandering off, or seek out the young, or heal the injured, or feed the healthy. But he will devour the flesh of the choice sheep, tearing off even their hooves.
17 “Woe to the worthless shepherd,
who deserts the flock!
May the sword strike his arm and his right eye!
Let his right arm be completely withered,
and his right eye completely blinded!”