Zechariah 11:1-13 ▼

1 Open your doors, Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars.

2 Wail, fir tree, for the cedar has fallen, because the stately ones are destroyed. Wail, you oaks of Bashan, for the strong forest has come down.

3 A voice of the wailing of the shepherds. For their glory is destroyed: a voice of the roaring of young lions. For the pride of the Jordan is ruined.

4 Thus says the LORD my God: |Feed the flock of slaughter.

5 Their buyers slaughter them, and go unpunished. Those who sell them say, 'Blessed be the LORD, for I am rich;' and their own shepherds do not pity them.

6 For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land,| says the LORD; |but, look, I will deliver the men everyone into his neighbor's hand, and into the hand of his king. They will strike the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them.|

7 So I fed the flock of slaughter, especially the oppressed of the flock. I took for myself two staffs. The one I called |Favor,| and the other I called |Union,| and I fed the flock.

8 I cut off the three shepherds in one month; for my soul was weary of them, and their soul also loathed me.

9 Then I said, |I will not feed you. That which dies, let it die; and that which is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let those who are left eat each other's flesh.|

10 I took my staff Favor, and cut it apart, that I might break my covenant that I had made with all the peoples.

11 It was broken in that day; and thus the poor of the flock that listened to me knew that it was the word of the LORD.

12 I said to them, |If you think it best, give me my wages; and if not, keep them.| So they weighed for my wages thirty pieces of silver.

13 The LORD said to me, |Throw it to the potter, the handsome price that I was valued at by them.| I took the thirty pieces of silver, and threw them to the potter, in the house of the LORD.