Zechariah 11:1-17
11 Lebanon, open your doors for fire to eat among your cedars.
2 * Howl, cypress, because a cedar has fallen, that parklands are ravaged! howl, Bashan oaks, because the Basor bush is down!
3 *** I hear the shepherds howling because their park-realm is ravaged; I hear the two-year-old lions roaring because the Jordan jungle is ravaged.
4 Said my God Jehovah, “Shepherd the slaughtering sheep,
5 * whose buyers kill and are not responsible, and whose sellers say ‘Bless Jehovah, I have been getting rich,’ and whose shepherds have no mercy on them;
6 ** for I will no longer have mercy on the inhabitants of the earth, quoth Jehovah. Here I am handing mankind over to each other and to their respective kings, and they will pound the earth up, and I will not deliver out of their hands.”
7 And I shepherded the slaughtering sheep for the sheep-traders; I got myself two staves, one of which I called Goodwill and the other Ties, and shepherded the sheep.
8 * And I killed off the three shepherds in one month; and I lost patience with them, and they on their part were disgusted with me.
9 And I said “I will not shepherd you: what dies shall die and what is missing shall be missing, and what remains shall eat each other’s flesh”;
10 and I took my staff Goodwill and chopped it in two, to break the terms I had come to with all the peoples,
11 and they were broken on that day; and the sheep-traders who were watching me knew it was Jehovah’s word.
12 And I said to them “If you think best, give me my pay; if not, don’t”; and they weighed out my pay, thirty shekels of silver.
13 * And Jehovah said to me “Throw it to the treasury, the grand valuation I got out of them”; and I threw it in Jehovah’s house, to the treasury.
14 And I chopped my second staff in two, Ties, to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
15 And Jehovah said to me “Take a shepherd’s outfit again, an incompetent one’s.
16 * For here I am setting up in the country a shepherd who will not attend to what is missing nor hunt up what strays nor cure what breaks a leg nor feed what is on its feet, but eat the flesh of what is fat and tear their hoofs.
17 * Woe to my sham shepherd who quits the sheep! a sword on his arm and on his right eye! his arm shall dry out and his right eye shall go dim.
Footnotes
^ 11:2 Conj. because the fir has fallen, grand
^ 11:3 Lit. down! The sound of the howling of the shepherds because
^ 11:3 Or because their mantle is spoiled
^ 11:3 Lit. ravaged; the sound of the roaring of the two-year-old lions because
^ 11:5 Lit. Blessed is Jehovah
^ 11:6 Or letting mankind get into each other’s hands and into those of their
^ 11:6 Conj.* over to their respective shepherds and kings
^ 11:8 Or I suppressed the three
^ 11:13 (twice) Var. to the potter
^ 11:16 (what is on its feet) Unc., susp.
^ 11:17 Conj. that verses 7 to 9 of chapter 13 belong at end of chapter 11
