console with illusions.
That is why My people have strayedb like a flock,
They sufferb for lack of a shepherd.
3My anger is roused against the shepherds,
And I will punish the he-goats.e
For the LORD of Hosts has taken thought
In behalf of His flock, the House of Judah;
He will make them like majestic chargers in battle.
4From them shall come f-cornerstones,
From them tent pegs,-f
From them bows of combat,
And every captain shall also arise from them.
5And together they shall be like warriors in battle,
Tramping in the dirt of the streets;
They shall fight, for the LORD shall be with them,
And they shall put horsemen to shame.
6I will give victory to the House of Judah,
And triumph to the House of Joseph.
I will restore them, for I have pardoned them,
And they shall be as though I had never disowned them;
For I the LORD am their God,
And I will answer their prayers.
7g-Ephraim shall be like a warrior,
And they-g shall exult as with wine;
Their children shall see it and rejoice,
They shall exult in the LORD.
8I will whistle to them and gather them,
For I will redeem them;
They shall increase b-and continue increasing.-b
9For though I sowed them among the nations,
In the distant places they shall remember Me,
They shall escape with their children and shall return.
10I will bring them back from the land of Egypt
And gather them from Assyria;
And I will bring them to the lands of Gilead and Lebanon,
And even they shall not suffice for them.
11b-A hemmed-in force shall pass over the sea
And shall stir up waves in the sea;-b
And all the deeps of the Nile shall dry up.
Down shall come the pride of Assyria,
And the scepter of Egypt shall pass away.
12But I will make themh mighty through the LORD,
And they shall i-march proudly-i in His name
—declares the LORD.
11
Throw open your gates, O Lebanon,
And let fire consume your cedars!
2Howl, cypresses, for cedars have fallen!
How the mighty are ravaged!
Howl, you oaks of Bashan,
For the stately forest is laid low!
3Hark, the wailing of the shepherds,
For their a-rich pastures-a are ravaged;
Hark, the roaring of the great beasts,
For the jungle of the Jordan is ravaged.
4Thus said my God the LORD: Tend the sheep meant for slaughter, 5whose buyers will slaughter them with impunity, whose seller will say, “Praised be the LORD! I’ll get rich,” and whose shepherd will not pity them. 6For I will pity the inhabitants of the land no more—declares the LORD—but I will place every man at the mercy of every other man and at the mercy of his king; they shall break the country to bits, and I will not rescue it from their hands.
7So I tended the sheep meant for slaughter, b-for those poor men of the sheep.-b I got two staffs, one of which I named Favor and the other Unity, and I proceeded to tend the sheep. 8But I lost c-the three shepherds-c in one month; then my patience with them was at an end, and they in turn were disgusted with me. 9So I declared, “I am not going to tend you; let the one that is to die die and the one that is to get lost get lost; and let the rest devour each other’s flesh!”
10Taking my staff Favor, I cleft it in two, so as to annul the covenant I had made with all the peoples;d 11and when it was annulled that day, e-the same poor men of the sheep-e who watchedf me realized that it was a message from the LORD. 12Then I said to them, “If you are satisfied, pay me my wages; if not, don’t.” So they weighed out my wages, thirty shekels of silver—13 a-the noble sum that I was worth in their estimation.-a The LORD said to me, “Deposit it in the treasury.”a And I took the thirty shekels and deposited it in the treasury in the House of the LORD. 14Then I cleft in two my second staff, Unity, in order to annul the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.g
15The LORD said to me further: Get yourself the gear of a foolish shepherd. 16For I am going to raise up in the land a shepherd who will neither miss the lost [sheep], nor seek the strayed,a nor heal the injured, nor sustain the frail,a but will feast on the flesh of the fat ones and a-tear off their hoofs.-a
17Oh, the worthless shepherd
Who abandons the flock!
Let a sword descend upon his arm
And upon his right eye!
His arm shall shrivel up;
His right eye shall go blind.
12 A pronouncement: The word of the LORD concerning Israel.
The utterance of the LORD,
Who stretched out the skies
And made firm the earth,
And created man’s breath within him:
2Behold, I will make Jerusalem a bowl of reeling for the peoples all around. Judah shall be caught up in the siege upon Jerusalem, 3when all the nations of the earth gather against her. In that day, I will make Jerusalem a stone for all the peoples to lift; all who lift it shall injure themselves. 4In that day—declares the LORD—I will strike every horse with panic and its rider with madness. But I will a-watch over the House of Judah while I strike every horse of-a the peoples with blindness. 5And the clans of Judah will say to themselves, b-“The dwellers of Jerusalem are a task set for us by-b their God, the LORD of Hosts.” 6In that day, I will make the clans of Judah like a flaming brazier among sticks and like a flaming torch among sheaves. They shall devour all the besieging peoples right and left; and Jerusalem shall continue on its site, in Jerusalem.c
7The LORD will give victory to the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of the House of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem may not be too great for Judah. 8In that day, the LORD will shield the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and the feeblest of them shall be in that day like David, and the House of David like a divine being—like an angel of the LORD—at their head.
9In that day I will d-all but annihilate-d all the nations that came up against Jerusalem. 10But I will fill the House of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem with a spirit of pity and compassion; and they shall lamente to Me about those who are slain, wailing over them as over a favorite son and showing bitter grief as over a first-born. 11In that day, the wailing in Jerusalem shall be as great as the wailing at Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddon.f 12The land shall wail, each family by itself: The family of the House of David by themselves, and their womenfolk by themselves; the family of the House of Nathan by themselves, and their womenfolk by themselves; 13the family of the House of Levi by themselves, and their womenfolk by themselves; the family of the Shimeites by themselves, and their womenfolk by themselves; 14and all the other families, every family by itself, with their womenfolk by themselves.g
13 In that day a fountain shall be open to the House of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem for purging and cleansing.
2In that day, too—declares the LORD of Hosts—I will erase the very names of the idols from the land; they shall not be uttered any more. And I will also make the “prophets” and the a-unclean spirit-a vanish from the land. 3If anyone “prophesies” thereafter, his own father and mother, who brought him into the world, will say to him, “You shall die, for you have lied in the name of the LORD”; and his own father and mother, who brought him into the world, will put him to death when he “prophesies.” 4In that day, every “prophet” will be ashamed of the “visions” [he had] when he “prophesied.” In order to deceive, heb will not wear a hairy mantle,c 5and he will declare, “I am not a ‘prophet’; d-I am a tiller of the soil;-d you see, e-I was plied with the red stuff-e from my youth on.” 6And if he is asked, “What are those f-sores on your back?”-f he will reply, “From being beaten in the homes of my friends.”g
7hO sword!
Rouse yourself against My shepherd,
The man i-in charge of My flock-i
—says the LORD of Hosts.
Strike down the shepherd
And let the flock scatter;
And I will also turn My hand
Against all the shepherd boys.
8Throughout the land
—declares the LORD—
Two-thirds shall perish, shall die,
And one-third of it shall survive.
9That third I will put into the fire,
And I will smelt them as one smelts silver
And test them as one tests gold.
They will invoke Me by name,
And I will respond to them.
I will declare, “You are My people,”
And they will declare,
“The LORD is our God!”
14 Lo, a day of the LORD is coming when youra spoil shall be divided in your very midst! 2For I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem for war: The city shall be captured, the houses plundered, and the women violated; and a part of the city shall go into exile. But the rest of the population shall not be uprooted from the city.
3Then the LORD will come forth and make war on those nations as He is wont to make war on a day of battle. 4On that day, He will set His feet on the Mount of Olives, near Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives shall split across from east to west, and one part of the Mount shall shift to the north and the other to the south, a huge gorge. 5bAnd the Valley in the Hills shall be stopped up, for the Valley of the Hills shall reach only to Azal; it shall be stopped up as it was stopped up