1
Open your doors, O Lebanon, That fire may devour your cedars.
2
Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen, Because the mighty trees are ruined. Wail, O oaks of Bashan, For the thick forest has come down.
3
There is the sound of wailing shepherds! For their glory is in ruins. There is the sound of roaring lions! For the pride of the Jordan is in ruins.
4
Thus says the Lord my God, "Feed the flock for slaughter,
5
whose owners slaughter them and feel no guilt; those who sell them say, 'Blessed be the Lord, for I am rich'; and their shepherds do not pity them.
6
For I will no longer pity the inhabitants of the land," says the Lord. "But indeed I will give everyone into his neighbor's hand and into the hand of his king. They shall attack the land, and I will not deliver them from their hand."
7
So I fed the flock for slaughter, in particular the poor of the flock. I took for myself two staffs: the one I called Beauty, and the other I called Bonds; and I fed the flock.
8
I dismissed the three shepherds in one month. My soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me.
9
Then I said, "I will not feed you. Let what is dying die, and what is perishing perish. Let those that are left eat each other's flesh."
10
And I took my staff, Beauty, and cut it in two, that I might break the covenant which I had made with all the peoples.
11
So it was broken on that day. Thus the poor of the flock, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the Lord.