11:1 Open your doors, Lebanon,
So that a fire may feed on your cedars.
11:2 Wail, juniper, because the cedar has fallen,
For the magnificent trees have been destroyed;
Wail, oaks of Bashan,
Because the ①impenetrable forest has come down.
▷ ①Another reading is forest of the vintage
11:3 There is a sound of the shepherds’ wail,
For their splendor is ruined;
There is a sound of the young lions’ roar,
For the ①pride of the Jordan is ruined.
▷ ①Or thicket
11:4 This is what the LORD my God says: “Pasture the flock doomed to slaughter.
11:5 Those who buy them slaughter them and ①go unpunished, and each of those who sell them says, ‘Blessed be the LORD, for I have become rich!’ And their own shepherds have no compassion for them.
▷ ①Lit are not held guilty
11:6 For I will no longer have compassion for the inhabitants of the land,” declares the LORD; “but behold, I will let the people fall, each into another’s ①power and into the ②power of his king; and they will crush the land, and I will not rescue them from their ③power.”
▷ ①Lit hand ②Lit hand ③Lit hand
11:7 So I pastured the flock doomed to slaughter, ①therefore also the afflicted of the flock. And I took for myself two staffs: the one I called ②Favor, and the other I called Union; so I pastured the flock.
▷ ①Another reading is for the sheep dealers ②Or Pleasantness
11:8 Then I did away with the three shepherds in one month, for my soul was impatient with them, and their soul also ①was tired of me.
▷ ①Or detested
11:9 Then I said, “I will not pasture you. What is to die, ①let it die, and what is to perish, ②let it perish; and ③let those who are left eat one another’s flesh.”
▷ ①Or will die ②Or will perish ③Or those...will eat
11:10 And I took my staff ①Favor and cut it in pieces, to ②break my covenant which I had made with all the peoples.
▷ ①Or Pleasantness ②Or annul
11:11 So it was ①broken on that day, and ②so the afflicted of the flock who were watching me realized that it was the word of the LORD.
▷ ①Or annulled ②Another reading is the sheep dealers who
11:12 And I said to them, “If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but if not, ①never mind!” So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages.
▷ ①Lit cease
11:13 Then the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them.” So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the LORD.
11:14 Then I cut in pieces my second staff Union, to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
11:15 And the LORD said to me, “Take again for yourself the equipment of a foolish shepherd.
11:16 For behold, I am going to raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for the perishing, seek the scattered, heal the broken, or provide for the one who is exhausted, but will devour the flesh of the fat sheep and tear off their hoofs.
11:17 Woe to the worthless shepherd
Who abandons the flock!
A sword will be on his arm
And on his right eye!
His arm will be totally withered,
And his right eye will be ①blind.”
▷ ①Lit completely dimmed