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”.