Sermon Central
Zechariah 11-12
1Open your doors, Lebanon, so that fire may devour your cedars!
2Wail, you juniper, for the cedar has fallen; the stately trees are ruined! Wail, oaks of Bashan; the dense forest has been cut down!
3Listen to the wail of the shepherds; their rich pastures are destroyed! Listen to the roar of the lions; the lush thicket of the Jordan is ruined!
Two Shepherds 4This is what the LORD my God says: “Shepherd the flock marked for slaughter. 5Their buyers slaughter them and go unpunished. Those who sell them say, ‘Praise the LORD, I am rich!’ Their own shepherds do not spare them.
6For I will no longer have pity on the people of the land,” declares the LORD . “I will give everyone into the hands of their neighbors and their king. They will devastate the land, and I will not rescue anyone from their hands.” 7So I shepherded the flock marked for slaughter, particularly the oppressed of the flock. Then I took two staffs and called one Favor and the other Union, and I shepherded the flock.
8In one month I got rid of the three shepherds. The flock detested me, and I grew weary of them
9and said, “I will not be your shepherd. Let the dying die, and the perishing perish. Let those who are left eat one another’s flesh.” 10Then I took my staff called Favor and broke it, revoking the covenant I had made with all the nations.
11It was revoked on that day, and so the oppressed of the flock who were watching me knew it was the word of the LORD .
12I told them, “If you think it best, give me my pay; but if not, keep it.” So they paid me thirty pieces of silver.
13And the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—the handsome price at which they valued me! So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them to the potter at the house of the LORD .
14Then I broke my second staff called Union, breaking the family bond between Judah and Israel. 15Then the LORD said to me, “Take again the equipment of a foolish shepherd.
16For I am going to raise up a shepherd over the land who will not care for the lost, or seek the young, or heal the injured, or feed the healthy, but will eat the meat of the choice sheep, tearing off their hooves. 17“Woe to the worthless shepherd, who deserts the flock! May the sword strike his arm and his right eye! May his arm be completely withered, his right eye totally blinded!”
Jerusalem’s Enemies to Be Destroyed 1A prophecy: The word of the LORD concerning Israel. The LORD, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the human spirit within a person, declares: 2“I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. 3On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves. 4On that day I will strike every horse with panic and its rider with madness,” declares the LORD . “I will keep a watchful eye over Judah, but I will blind all the horses of the nations.
5Then the clans of Judah will say in their hearts, ‘The people of Jerusalem are strong, because the LORD Almighty is their God.’
6“On that day I will make the clans of Judah like a firepot in a woodpile, like a flaming torch among sheaves. They will consume all the surrounding peoples right and left, but Jerusalem will remain intact in her place. 7“The LORD will save the dwellings of Judah first, so that the honor of the house of David and of Jerusalem’s inhabitants may not be greater than that of Judah. 8On that day the LORD will shield those who live in Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the angel of the LORD going before them.
9On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem.
Mourning for the One They Pierced
10“And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit