Two Kinds of Shepherds

⁴ Thus said the Lord my God: “Become shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter. ⁵ Those who buy them slay them and go unpunished; and those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the Lord, I have become rich’; and their own shepherds have no pity on them. ⁶ For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of this land, says the Lord. Lo, I will cause men to fall each into the hand of his shepherd, and each into the hand of his king; and they shall crush the earth, and I will deliver none from their hand.”

⁷ So I became the shepherd of the flock doomed to be slain for those who trafficked in the sheep. And I took two staffs; one I named Grace, the other I named Union. And I tended the sheep. ⁸ In one month I destroyed the three shepherds. But I became impatient with them, and they also detested me. ⁹ So I said, “I will not be your shepherd. What is to die, let it die; what is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed; and let those that are left devour the flesh of one another.” ¹⁰ And I took my staff Grace, and I broke it, annulling the covenant which I had made with all the peoples. ¹¹ So it was annulled on that day, and the traffickers in the sheep, 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.” And they weighed out as my wages thirty shekels of silver. ¹³ Then the Lord said to me, “Cast it into the treasury”^[a]—the lordly price at which I was paid off by them. So I took the thirty shekels of silver and cast them into the treasury^[b] in the house of the Lord. ¹⁴ Then I broke my second staff Union, annulling the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.

¹⁵ Then the Lord said to me, “Take once more the implements of a worthless shepherd. ¹⁶ For lo, I am raising up in the land a shepherd who does not care for the perishing, or seek the wandering,^[c] or heal the maimed, or nourish the sound, but devours the flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hoofs.