Zechariah 11:4-14

Common English Bible

The shepherd’s two staffs

⁴This is what the Lord my God says:
    Shepherd the flock intended for slaughter.
⁵        Those who buy them will kill them,
            but they will go unpunished.
        Those who sell them will say,
            “Blessed is the Lord, for I have become rich.”
                And their own shepherds won’t spare them.
⁶                In fact, I will no longer spare the inhabitants of the land, says the Lord.
        But look what I am about to bring upon humanity,
            upon each of them by their neighbor’s hand and by the hand of their king:
        They will beat the land to pieces,
            but I won’t rescue anyone from their hand.
⁷So I shepherded the flock intended for slaughter,
            the afflicted of the flock.^[a]
I took two staffs for myself.
        I named one Delight;
            the other I named Harmony.
I shepherded the flock.
⁸I removed three shepherds in one month
        when I grew impatient with them.
        Moreover, they detested me.
⁹Then I said, “I won’t shepherd you.
    Let the dying die,
                and let what is to be removed be removed.
    Let those who are left devour the flesh of their neighbor.”

¹⁰Then I took the staff Delight,
        and I chopped it up in order to break my covenant that I had made with all the peoples.
¹¹        It was broken on that day.
            As a result, the afflicted^[b] of the flock knew that it was the Lord’s word.
¹²And I said to them,
        “If it appears good to you, give me my wages;
        but if not, then stop.”
        So they weighed out my wages, thirty shekels of silver.
¹³The Lord said to me,
        “Put it in the treasury.^[c]
        They value me at too magnificent a price.”
So I took the thirty shekels^[d] of silver
        and put them in the treasury of the Lord’s house.