1. Open your doors, Lebanon,so that fire may devour your cedars!
2. Wail, you juniper, for the cedar has fallen;the stately trees are ruined!Wail, oaks of Bashan;the dense forest has been cut down!
3. Listen to the wail of the shepherds:their rich pastures are destroyed!Listen to the roar of the lions;the lush thicket of the Jordan is ruined!
4. This is what the Lord my God says: ‘Shepherd the flock marked for slaughter.
5. Their buyers slaughter them and go unpunished. Those who sell them say, “Praise the Lord, I am rich!” Their own shepherds do not spare them.
6. For I will no longer have pity on the people of the land,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will give everyone into the hands of their neighbours and their king. They will devastate the land, and I will not rescue anyone from their hands.’
7. So I shepherded the flock marked for slaughter, particularly the oppressed of the flock. Then I took two staffs and called one Favour and the other Union, and I shepherded the flock.
8. In one month I got rid of the three shepherds.The flock detested me, and I grew weary of them
9. and said, ‘I will not be your shepherd. Let the dying die, and the perishing perish. Let those who are left eat one another’s flesh.’
10. Then I took my staff called Favour and broke it, revoking the covenant I had made with all the nations.