Zechariah

The Shepherd, the Two Staffs, and Israel's Rejection

Chapter 11

⁴ This is what the LORD my God says: Shepherd the sheep of the slaughter. ⁵ whose buyers slay them and do not become guilty, and their sellers say, "Blessed be the LORD, for I will enrich myself," and their shepherds do not spare them. ⁶ For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of the land—this is the utterance of the LORD—and behold, I am bringing forth each man into the hand of his fellow and into the hand of his king, and they will crush the land, and I will not deliver from their hand. ⁷ And I pastured the flock of the slaughter, therefore the poor of the flock. And I took for myself two staffs: to one I called Favor, and to one I called Bonds. And I pastured the flock. ⁸ And I will cut off three evil shepherds in one month, and my soul grew weary of them, and their soul also grew sick of me. ⁹ And I said, "No, I will not shepherd you. The dying one will die, the one being cut off will be cut off, and the remaining ones will eat, a woman the flesh of her companion." ¹⁰ And I took my staff Grace and broke it to nullify my covenant that I had made with all the peoples. ¹¹ And it was broken on that day, and the poor of the flock who were watching me thus knew that this is the word of the LORD. ¹² And they said to me, "If it is good in your eyes, give my wage; if not, cease." And they weighed out my wage: thirty silver. ¹³ And the LORD said to me, "Throw it to the potter, the magnificent preciousness at which I was priced by them." And I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw it to the house of the LORD, to the potter. ¹⁴ And I cut my second staff, Cord, to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel. ¹⁵ And the LORD said to me, "Take for yourself again the vessel of a shepherd, perhaps." ¹⁶ For behold, I am raising up a shepherd in the land who will not care for the ones being cut off, the boy he will not seek, the broken one he will not heal, the standing one he will not sustain, the flesh of the healthy one he will eat, and their hooves he will tear apart. ¹⁷ Woe to the worthless shepherd who abandons the flock! Sword upon his arm and upon the eye of his right hand—his arm will dry up, it will dry up, and the eye of his right hand will grow dim, it will grow dim.

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