Christian Standard Bible (CSB)
Israel’s Shepherds: Good and Bad
11 Open your gates, Lebanon,
and fire will consume your cedars.
2 Wail, cypress, for the cedar has fallen;
the glorious trees are destroyed!
Wail, oaks of Bashan,
for the stately forest has fallen!
3 Listen to the wail of the shepherds,
for their glory is destroyed.
Listen to the roar of young lions,
for the thickets of the Jordan are[a] destroyed.
4 The Lord my God says this: “Shepherd the flock intended for slaughter. 5 Those who buy them slaughter them but are not punished. Those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the Lord because I have become rich!’ Even their own shepherds have no compassion for them. 6 Indeed, I will no longer have compassion on the inhabitants of the land”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “Instead, I will turn everyone over to his neighbor and his king. They will devastate the land, and I will not rescue it from their hand.”
7 So I shepherded the flock intended for slaughter, the oppressed of the flock.[b] I took two staffs, calling one Favor and the other Union, and I shepherded the flock. 8 In one month I got rid of three shepherds. I became impatient with them, and they also detested me. 9 Then I said, “I will no longer shepherd you. Let what is dying die, and let what is perishing perish; let the rest devour each other’s flesh.” 10 Next I took my staff called Favor and cut it in two, annulling the covenant I had made with all the peoples. 11 It was annulled on that day, and so the oppressed of the flock[c] who were watching me knew that it was the word of the Lord. 12 Then I said to them, “If it seems right to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” So they weighed my wages, thirty pieces of silver.
13 “Throw it to the potter,”[d] the Lord said to me—this magnificent price I was valued by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw it into the house of the Lord, to the potter.[e] 14 Then I cut in two my second staff, Union, annulling the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
15 The Lord also said to me, “Take the equipment of a foolish shepherd. 16 I am about to raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for those who are perishing, and he will not seek the lost[f] or heal the broken. He will not sustain the healthy,[g] but he will devour the flesh of the fat sheep and tear off their hooves.
17 Woe to the worthless shepherd
who deserts the flock!
May a sword strike[h] his arm
and his right eye!
May his arm wither away
and his right eye go completely blind!”
