The Doomed Flock
1Open your doors, Lebanon,
So that a fire may feed on your cedars.
2Wail, juniper, because the cedar has fallen,
For the magnificent trees have been destroyed;
Wail, oaks of Bashan,
Because the Another reading is forest of the vintageimpenetrable forest has come down.
3There is a sound of the shepherds’ wail,
For their splendor is ruined;
There is a sound of the young lions’ roar,
For the Or thicketpride of the Jordan is ruined.
5Those who buy them slaughter them and Lit are not held guiltygo unpunished, and each of those who sell them says, ‘Blessed be the Lord, for I have become rich!’ And their own shepherds have no compassion for them.
6For I will no longer have compassion for the inhabitants of the land,” declares the Lord; “but behold, I will let the people fall, each into another’s Lit handpower and into the Lit handpower of his king; and they will crush the land, and I will not rescue them from their Lit handpower.”
7So I pastured the flock doomed to slaughter, Another reading is for the sheep dealerstherefore also the afflicted of the flock. And I took for myself two staffs: the one I called Or PleasantnessFavor, and the other I called Union; so I pastured the flock.
8Then I did away with the three shepherds in one month, for my soul was impatient with them, and their soul also Or detestedwas tired of me.
9Then I said, “I will not pasture you. What is to die, Or will dielet it die, and what is to perish, Or will perishlet it perish; and Or those...will eatlet those who are left eat one another’s flesh.”
10And I took my staff Or PleasantnessFavor and cut it in pieces, to Or annulbreak my covenant which I had made with all the peoples.
11So it was Or annulledbroken on that day, and Another reading is the sheep dealers whoso the afflicted of the flock who were watching me realized that it was the word of the Lord.
12And I said to them, “If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but if not, Lit ceasenever mind!” So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages.
13Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them.” So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the Lord.
14Then I cut in pieces my second staff Union, to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
15And the Lord said to me, “Take again for yourself the equipment of a foolish shepherd.
16For behold, I am going to raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for the perishing, seek the scattered, heal the broken, or provide for the one who is exhausted, but will devour the flesh of the fat sheep and tear off their hoofs.
17Woe to the worthless shepherd
Who abandons the flock!
A sword will be on his arm
And on his right eye!
His arm will be totally withered,
And his right eye will be Lit completely dimmedblind.”
New American Standard Bible
Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020
by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif. All rights reserved.
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