Zechariah 11 — Legacy Standard Bible

Woe to the Worthless Shepherd

11Open your doors, O Lebanon,That a ^afire may consume your ^bcedars.²Wail, O ¹cypress, for the cedar has fallen,Because the mighty trees have been destroyed;Wail, O oaks of Bashan,For the ²impenetrable forest has come down.³There is a sound of the shepherds’ ^awail,For their might is destroyed;There is a ^bsound of the young lions’ roar,For the ¹pride of the Jordan is destroyed.

⁴Thus says Yahweh my God, “Shepherd the flock doomed to ^aslaughter. ⁵“Those who buy them slaughter them and are not ^aheld guilty, and each of those who sell them says, ‘Blessed be Yahweh. Indeed, ^bI have become rich!’ And their ^cown shepherds do not spare them. ⁶“For I will ^ano longer spare the inhabitants of the land,” declares Yahweh; “but behold, I will ^bcause the men to ¹fall, each into another’s hand and into the hand of his king; and they will crush the land, and I will ^cnot deliver them from their hand.”

⁷So I ^ashepherded the flock doomed to slaughter—¹hence the ^bafflicted of the flock. And I took for myself two ^cstaffs: the one I called ²^,^dFavor, and the other I called ³^,^eUnion; so I shepherded the flock. ⁸Then I annihilated the three shepherds in ^aone month, for my soul was impatient with them, and their soul also ¹was weary of me. ⁹Then I said, “I will not shepherd you. What is to ^adie, ¹let it die, and what is to be annihilated, ²let it be annihilated; and ³let those who remain consume one another’s flesh.” ¹⁰And I took my staff ¹^,^aFavor and cut it in pieces, to ²^,^bbreak my covenant which I had cut with all the peoples. ¹¹So it was ¹broken on that day, and ²thus the ^aafflicted of the flock who were watching me knew that it was the word of Yahweh. ¹²And I said to them, “If it is good in your sight, give me my ^awages; but if not, ¹never mind!” So they weighed out ^bthirty ²shekels of silver as my wages. ¹³Then Yahweh said to me, “Throw it to the ^apotter, that valuable 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 Yahweh. ¹⁴Then I cut in pieces my second staff ¹^,^aUnion, to ^bbreak the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.

¹⁵Then Yahweh said to me, “Take again for yourself the equipment of a ¹^,^afoolish shepherd. ¹⁶“For behold, I am going to raise up a shepherd in the land who will ^anot care for those who face annihilation, seek the young, heal the broken, or sustain the one standing, but will ^bconsume the flesh of the fat sheep and tear off their hoofs.

¹⁷“^aWoe to the worthless shepherdWho forsakes the flock!A ^bsword will be on his armAnd on his right eye!His ^carm will be totally dried up,And his right eye will be utterly dimmed.”