1. Open your gates, Lebanon— fire will devour your cedars!
2. Wail, cypress tree! For the cedar has fallen. Those majestic ones are devastated. Wail, oaks of Bashan! For the thick forest is cut down!
3. Listen to the wailing of the shepherds, for their glory is destroyed! Listen to the roaring of young lions, for Jordan’s thickets are ruined!
4. Thus said Adonai my God: “Shepherd the flock marked for slaughter!
5. Their buyers slay them and go unpunished. Those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be Adonai, for I am rich!’ Their own shepherds do not spare them.
6. I will no longer have compassion on the inhabitants of the land”—it is a declaration of Adonai. “Behold, I will hand everyone over to his neighbor and his king. They will devastate the land, and I will not deliver them from their hand.”
7. So I pastured the flock for the slaughter, especially the afflicted of the flock. Then I took two staffs—one I called Favor and the other I called Union—and I pastured the flock.
8. Next I disposed of the three shepherds in one month—for my soul was impatient with them and their soul also detested me.
9. Then I said, “I will not shepherd you! Let the dying die, let the perishing perish, and let those who are left eat one another’s flesh!”
10. So I took my staff called Favor and broke it to pieces, in order to break my covenant that I made with all people.
11. It was broken on that day. The afflicted of the flock that were watching me knew that this was the word of Adonai.”