Chapter 11
1 Open your doors, O Lebanon,
so that the fire may devour your cedars.
2 Wail, you cypress trees,
for the cedars have fallen,
the majestic trees have been ravaged.
Wail, you oaks of Bashan,
for the impenetrable forest has been felled.
3 Listen to the wailing of the shepherds,
for their majesty has been destroyed.
Listen to the roar of the lions,
for the dense thickets of the Jordan have been ravaged.
The New Shepherd of Israel
The Two Shepherds.[a] 4 Thus says the Lord, my God: Be a shepherd to the flock destined for slaughter. 5 Those who buy them kill them and go unpunished, while those who sell them say, “Blessed be the Lord, for I have become rich.” Even their own shepherds feel no pity for them.
6 I will no longer have any pity for the inhabitants of the earth, says the Lord. Rather, I will deliver each one of them into the power of his neighbor or into the clutches of the king. They will devastate the earth, and I will not deliver anyone from their hands.
7 And so I became a shepherd of the flock that was destined to be slaughtered by the sheep dealers. I took two staffs, one of which I named Favor and the other one of which I named Unity, and I pastured the sheep myself. 8 In a single month I got rid of the three shepherds. However, I soon lost patience with the flock, and they detested me.
9 Finally I said. “I will not be your shepherd any longer. What is to die, let it die. What is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed. Those who are left can devour one another.”
10 Then I took my staff “Favor” and snapped it in two, thereby annulling the covenant I had made with all the peoples. 11 Therefore, it was annulled on that day, and the dealers who were watching me realized that this was the word of the Lord. 12 I said to them, “If it seems right to you, give me my wages; if not, then forget about it.” Then they weighed out my wages, thirty pieces of silver.
13 However, the Lord said to me, “Throw it into the treasury—the princely sum at which they valued my efforts.” Therefore, I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the treasury of the house of the Lord. 14 Then I broke my second staff, “Unity,” in half, annulling the ties of brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
15 The Lord thereupon said to me: Take once again the equipment of a worthless shepherd. 16 For I am now going to raise up a shepherd in the land who will have no concern for those who are perishing, nor go off in search of the strays, nor heal the injured, nor nourish those who survive, but who will eat the meat of the fat animals, tearing off even their hoofs.
17 Woe to the worthless shepherd
who abandons his flock.
May the sword fall upon his arm
and upon his right eye.
Let his arm be completely withered
and his right eye be totally blinded.
Footnotes
- Zechariah 11:4 The separation of the Samaritans became final around 328 B.C., and foreign invasions will occur from the fourth to the second century. At the end, an editor has added a curse against a wicked leader. Matthew 27:9-10 quite rightly applies to Jesus what is said (Zec 11:12-13) about the derisive wage of thirty pieces of silver: the one who came to save humankind was repaid with hatred and betrayal.