1. Lebanon, open your gates!Let the fire come into destroy your cedar trees.
2. Cry, you cypress trees!The glorious cedars have fallenand are rotting.Cry, you oak trees of Bashan!The dense foresthas been chopped down.
3. Listen! Shepherds are crying.Their glorious pastureshave been ruined.Listen! Lions are roaring.The forests of the Jordan Valleyare no more to be found.
4. The Lord my God said to me:Tend those sheep doomed for slaughter!
5. The people who buy and butcher them go unpunished, while everyone who sells them says, “Praise the Lord! I'm rich.” Not even their shepherds have pity on them.
6. Tend those sheep because I, the Lord, will no longer have pity on the people of this earth. I'll turn neighbour against neighbour and make them slaves of a king. They will bring disaster on the earth, and I'll do nothing to rescue any of them.
7. So I became a shepherd of those sheep doomed to be slaughtered by the sheep dealers. And I gave names to the two sticks I used for tending the sheep: one of them was named “Mercy” and the other “Unity”.
12-13. I told them, “Pay me my wages, if you think you should; otherwise, forget it.” So they handed me my wages, a measly thirty pieces of silver.Then the Lord said, “Throw the money into the treasury.” So I threw the money into the treasury at the Lord's temple.