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

^7 (E)So I became the shepherd of the flock doomed to be slaughtered by the sheep traders. And I took two staffs, one I named ^(F)Favor, the other I named ^(G)Union. ^(H)And I tended the sheep. ⁸ In one month ^(I)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. ^(J)What is to die, let it die. What is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed. And let those who are left devour the flesh of one another.” ¹⁰ And I took ^(K)my staff Favor, and I broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with all the peoples. ¹¹ So it was annulled on that day, and the sheep traders, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the Lord. ¹² Then I said to them, “If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” And they weighed out as my wages ^(L)thirty pieces of silver. ¹³ Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—^(M)the lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the ^(N)thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord, to the potter. ¹⁴ Then I broke ^(O)my second staff Union, annulling the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.