⁴ Then said the Lord my God to me, “Go and take a job as shepherd of a flock being fattened for the butcher. ⁵ This will illustrate the way my people have been bought and slain by wicked leaders, who go unpunished. ‘Thank God, now I am rich!’ say those who have betrayed them—their own shepherds have sold them without mercy. ⁶ And I won’t spare them either,” says the Lord, “for I will let them fall into the clutches of their own wicked leaders, and they will slay them. They shall turn the land into a wilderness, and I will not protect it from them.”

⁷ So I took two shepherd’s staffs, naming one Grace and the other Union, and I fed the flock as I had been told to do. ⁸ And I got rid of their three evil shepherds in a single month. But I became impatient with these sheep—this nation—and they hated me too.

⁹ So I told them, “I won’t be your shepherd any longer. If you die, you die; if you are killed, I don’t care. Go ahead and destroy yourselves!”

¹⁰ And I took my staff called Grace and snapped it in two, showing that I had broken my contract to lead and protect them. ¹¹ That was the end of the agreement. Then those who bought and sold sheep, who were watching, realized that God was telling them something through what I did.

¹² And I said to their leaders, “If you like, give me my pay, whatever I am worth; but only if you want to.”

So they counted out thirty little silver coins^[a] as my wages.

¹³ And the Lord told me, “Use it to buy a field from the pottery makers^[b]—this magnificent sum they value you at!”

So I took the thirty coins and threw them into the Temple for the pottery makers. ¹⁴ Then I broke my other staff, “Union,” to show that the bond of unity between Judah and Israel was broken.