1Open your doors, L'vanon, so that fire can consume your cedars.
2Wail, cypress, because the cedar has fallen, those splendid trees are ruined. Wail, oaks of Bashan, because the thick forest has been felled.
3Listen to the wail of the shepherds, because their glory is spoiled. Listen to the roaring of young lions, because the Yarden's thickets are plundered.
4ADONAI my God says this: "Shepherd the flock for slaughter.
5Their buyers kill them and go unpunished; while those who sell them say, 'Barukh ADONAI! Now I'm rich!' Even their own shepherds show them no pity.
6I will no longer show pity to the inhabitants of the land," says ADONAI. "No, I will hand every one of them over to the power of a neighbor and to the power of his king; they will crush the land; and I won't rescue them from their power."
7So I shepherded the flock for slaughter, truly the most miserable of the sheep; and I took two staffs for myself. I called the one No'am [pleasantness], the other I called Hovalim [bound together], and I shepherded the flock.
8"In a single month I got rid of three shepherds, because I grew impatient with them; and besides, they detested me.
9I said, 'I'm not going to shepherd you. Whichever one is going to die, let it die; whichever is going to be destroyed, let it be destroyed; and the rest can all devour each other.'"
10I took my staff No'am and snapped it in two, "in order to break my covenant, which I made with all the peoples."
11On that day when it was broken, the most miserable of the sheep who paid attention to me knew that this was indeed a message from ADONAI.
12I said to them, "If it seems good to you, give me my wages; if not, don't." So they weighed out my wages, thirty silver [shekels, that is, twelve ounces].
13Concerning that "princely sum" at which they valued me, ADONAI said, "Throw it into the treasury!" So I took the thirty silver [shekels] and threw them into the treasury in the house of ADONAI.
14Then I snapped in two my other staff Hovalim [bound together], in order to break up the brotherhood between Y'hudah and Isra'el.
15ADONAI said to me, "This time, take the equipment of a worthless shepherd.
16For I am going to raise up a shepherd in the land who won't bother about the ones who have been destroyed, won't seek out the young, won't heal the broken and won't feed those standing still; on the contrary, he will eat the meat of the fat ones and break their hoofs in pieces.
17"Woe to the worthless shepherd who abandons the sheep! May a sword strike his arm and his right eye. May his arm be completely withered and his right eye totally blinded."