Day 231 of 365

¹Ask of the Lord rain in the spring time, The Lord who makes storm clouds, and he gives rain showers to everyone for the plants in the field.

²For the teraphim have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie; and they have told false dreams. They comfort in vain. Therefore they go their way like sheep. They are oppressed, because there is no shepherd.

³My anger is kindled against the shepherds, and I will punish the male goats; For the Lord of hosts has visited his flock, the house of Judah, and will make them as his majestic horse in the battle.

⁴From him will come forth the cornerstone, from him the nail, from him the battle bow, from him every ruler together.

⁵They shall be as mighty men, treading down muddy streets in the battle; and they shall fight, because the Lord is with them; and the riders on horses will be confounded.

⁶"I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph, and I will bring them back; for I have mercy on them; and they will be as though I had not cast them off: for I am the Lord their God, and I will hear them.

⁷Ephraim will be like a mighty man, and their heart will rejoice as through wine; yes, their children will see it, and rejoice. Their heart will be glad in the Lord.

⁸I will signal for them, and gather them; for I have redeemed them; and they will increase as they have increased.

⁹I will sow them among the peoples; and they will remember me in far countries; and they will live with their children, and will return.

¹⁰I will bring them again also out of the land of Egypt, and gather them out of Assyria; and I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon; and there won't be room enough for them.

¹¹He will pass through the sea of affliction, and will strike the waves in the sea, and all the depths of the Nile will dry up; and the pride of Assyria will be brought down, and the scepter of Egypt will depart.

¹²I will strengthen them in the Lord; and they will walk up and down in his name," says the Lord.

¹Open your doors, Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars.

²Wail, fir tree, for the cedar has fallen, because the stately ones are destroyed. Wail, you oaks of Bashan, for the strong forest has come down.

³A voice of the wailing of the shepherds! For their glory is destroyed: a voice of the roaring of young lions! For the pride of the Jordan is ruined.

⁴Thus says the Lord my God: "Feed the flock of slaughter.

⁵Their buyers slaughter them, and go unpunished. Those who sell them say, 'Blessed be the Lord, for I am rich;' and their own shepherds do not pity them.

⁶For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land," says the Lord; "but, behold, I will deliver the men everyone into his neighbor's hand, and into the hand of his king. They will strike the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them."

⁷So I fed the flock of slaughter, especially the oppressed of the flock. I took for myself two staffs. The one I called "Favor," and the other I called "Union," and I fed the flock.

⁸I cut off the three shepherds in one month; for my soul was weary of them, and their soul also loathed me.

⁹Then I said, "I will not feed you. That which dies, let it die; and that which is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let those who are left eat each other's flesh."

¹⁰I took my staff Favor, and cut it apart, that I might break my covenant that I had made with all the peoples.

¹¹It was broken in that day; and thus the poor of the flock that listened to me knew that it was the word of the Lord.

¹²I said to them, "If you think it best, give me my wages; and if not, keep them." So they weighed for my wages thirty pieces of silver.

¹³The Lord said to me, "Throw it to the potter, the handsome price that I was valued at by them!" I took the thirty pieces of silver, and threw them to the potter, in the house of the Lord.

¹⁴Then I cut apart my other staff, even Union, that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.

¹⁵The Lord said to me, "Take for yourself yet again the equipment of a foolish shepherd.

¹⁶For, behold, I will raise up a shepherd in the land, who will not visit those who are cut off, neither will seek those who are scattered, nor heal that which is broken, nor feed that which is sound; but he will eat the flesh of the fat sheep, and will tear their hoofs in pieces.

¹⁷Woe to the worthless shepherd who leaves the flock! The sword will be on his arm, and on his right eye. His arm will be completely withered, and his right eye will be totally blinded!"

¹An oracle. The word of the Lord concerning Israel. The Lord, who stretches out the heavens, and lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him says:

²"Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of reeling to all the surrounding peoples, and on Judah also will it be in the siege against Jerusalem.

³It will happen in that day, that I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all the peoples. All who burden themselves with it will be severely wounded, and all the nations of the earth will be gathered together against it.

⁴In that day," says the Lord, "I will strike every horse with terror, and his rider with madness; and I will open my eyes on the house of Judah, and will strike every horse of the peoples with blindness.

⁵The chieftains of Judah will say in their heart, 'The inhabitants of Jerusalem are my strength in the Lord of hosts their God.'

⁶In that day I will make the chieftains of Judah like a pan of fire among wood, and like a flaming torch among sheaves; and they will devour all the surrounding peoples, on the right hand and on the left; and Jerusalem will yet again dwell in their own place, even in Jerusalem.

⁷The Lord also will save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem not be magnified above Judah.

⁸In that day the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem. He who is feeble among them at that day will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the angel of the Lord before them.

⁹It will happen in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.

¹⁰I will pour on the house of David, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they will look to me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and will grieve bitterly for him, as one grieves for his firstborn.

¹¹In that day there will be a great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon.

¹²The land will mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart;

¹³the family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of the Shimeites apart, and their wives apart;

¹⁴all the families who remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.

¹"In that day there will be a spring opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness.

²It will come to pass in that day, says the Lord of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they will be remembered no more. I will also cause the prophets and the spirit of impurity to pass out of the land.

³It will happen that, when anyone still prophesies, then his father and his mother who bore him will tell him, 'You must die, because you speak lies in the name of the Lord;' and his father and his mother who bore him will stab him when he prophesies.

⁴It will happen in that day, that the prophets will each be ashamed of his vision, when he prophesies; neither will they wear a hairy mantle to deceive:

⁵but he will say, 'I am no prophet, I am a tiller of the ground; for I have been made a bondservant from my youth.'

⁶One will say to him, 'What are these wounds between your hands?' Then he will answer, 'Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.'

⁷"Awake, sword, against my shepherd, and against the man who is close to me," says the Lord of hosts. "Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; and I will turn my hand against the little ones.

⁸It shall happen that in all the land," says the Lord, "two parts in it will be cut off and die; but the third will be left in it.

⁹I will bring the third part into the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will test them like gold is tested. They will call on my name, and I will hear them. I will say, 'It is my people;' and they will say, 'The Lord is my God.'"