⁹ I 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.’”

¹⁰ I took my staff No‘am and snapped it in two, “in order to break my covenant, which I made with all the peoples.” ¹¹ On 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.