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The Doomed Flock

¹ Open your doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may consume your cedars.² Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen; the majestic trees are ruined! Wail, O oaks of Bashan, for the dense forest has been cut down!³ Listen to the wail of the shepherds, for their glory is in ruins. Listen to the howl of the young lions, for the thickets of the Jordan are destroyed.

⁴ This is what the LORD my God says: “Pasture the flock marked for slaughter,⁵ whose buyers slaughter them without remorse. Those who sell them say, ‘Praise the LORD, for I am rich!’ Even their own shepherds have no compassion for them.⁶ For I will no longer have compassion on the people of the land,” declares the LORD, “but behold, I will cause each man to fall into the hand of his neighbor and of his king, who will devastate the land, and I will not deliver it from their hands.”⁷ So I pastured the flock marked for slaughter, especially the afflicted of the flock. Then I took for myself two staffs, calling one Favor and the other Union, and I pastured the flock.⁸ And in one month I dismissed three shepherds. My soul grew impatient with the flock, and their souls also detested me.⁹ Then I said, “I will no longer shepherd you. Let the dying die, and the perishing perish; let the rest devour one another's flesh.”

Thirty Pieces of Silver

(Matthew 26:14-16; Matthew 27:3-10; Mark 14:10-11)

¹⁵ And the LORD said to me: “Take up once more the equipment of a foolish shepherd.¹⁶ For behold, I will raise up a shepherd in the land who will neither care for the lost, nor seek the young, nor heal the broken, nor sustain the healthy, but he will devour the flesh of the choice sheep and tear off their hooves.¹⁷ Woe to the worthless shepherd, who deserts the flock! May a sword strike his arm and his right eye! May his arm be completely withered and his right eye utterly blinded!”