Ezekiel

34 And Jehovah’s word came to me 2* “Man, prophesy about the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them ‘For the shepherds the Lord Jehovah says, Ho, shepherds of Israel, are shepherds to tend themselves? is it not the sheep that shepherds are to tend? 3 You eat the milk and wear the wool, you slaughter the fattest one, and the sheep you do not tend. 4* The feeble you have not brought up to strength, and the sick you have not cured, and the broken-boned you have not bandaged, and the straying you have not brought back, and the lost you have not hunted up, and you have controlled them by ruthless use of main force; 5 and they scattered about shepherdless, and became food for all the wild beasts. 6 And my sheep scattered and blundered about all over the mountains and on every high hill; all over the country my sheep scattered, and there was nobody reclaiming them, nobody hunting them up.

7 “‘So, shepherds, hear Jehovah’s word! 8 By my life, quoth the Lord Jehovah, since my sheep became an object of plunder and my sheep became food for all the wild beasts for lack of a shepherd, and my shepherds did not reclaim my sheep, but the shepherds tended themselves and did not tend my sheep, 9 therefore, shepherds, hear Jehovah’s word! 10** Says the Lord Jehovah, Have at the shepherds! I will reclaim my sheep out of their hands and make them leave off shepherding my sheep; and the shepherds shall not tend themselves again, but I will deliver my sheep out of their jaws and they shall not be food for them.

11 “‘For the Lord Jehovah says, Here I am, I myself, and I will reclaim my sheep and go over them 12 as a shepherd goes over his flock on the day that he gets into the middle of his sheep that had dispersed; like that I will go over my sheep, and I will deliver them out of all the places to which they had been scattered on a day of cloud and thick air. 13* And I will take them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and bring them to their own soil, and will tend them on the mountains of Israel, in the gorges and in all the abodes of the country. 14 I will pasture them on good pasturage, and on the mountains of Israel’s lofty highland shall be their feeding-ground; there they shall lie down on good ground and pasture fat pasturage on the mountains of Israel. 15 I myself will pasture my sheep and I myself will see to their lying down, quoth the Lord Jehovah. 16 The lost I will hunt up and the straying I will bring back and the broken-boned I will bandage and the sick I will bring up to strength, and the fat and the strong I will watch over; I will tend them as they should be tended.

17 “‘And you, my sheep! Says the Lord Jehovah, I will judge between animal and animal, the rams and the he-goats. 18 Is it too little for you to pasture off the best pasturage, and you trample the rest of your pasturage with your feet? and you drink the clean part of water and roil the rest with your feet? 19 and my sheep feed on the mess your feet have trampled and drink the stuff your feet have roiled. 20 So the Lord God Jehovah says, Here I am, I myself, and I will judge between fat animal and lean animal. 21 Since you shove with side and shoulder, and butt all sickly ones with your horns till you have scattered them outside, 22 I will save my sheep and they shall not become plunder again, and I will judge between animal and animal. 23 And I will set up over them one shepherd who shall tend them, my servant David; he shall tend them; he shall become their shepherd. 24 And they shall have me, Jehovah, for their God, with my servant David as prince in their midst; I Jehovah promise it. 25 And I will give them a pledge of safety and will clean out dangerous beasts from the country, and they shall settle in the wilderness in confident security and sleep soundly in the badlands. 26* And I will give seasonable showers as a blessing, and send down rainstorms at their season, blessed showers; 27 and the trees on the range shall give their fruits and the earth shall give its crops, and they shall be in confident security on their own soil; and they shall know that I am Jehovah when I break the bows of their yoke. And I will deliver them out of the hands of those who are exploiting them, 28 and they shall never again be an object of plunder for the nations, and the beasts of the country shall not eat them; and they shall live in confident security and have no one to alarm them. 29* And I will raise up for them a planter of peace, and they shall never again be swept off by starvation in the country, nor bear humiliation from the nations again. 30 And they shall know that I their God Jehovah am with them and they are my people the house of Israel, quoth the Lord Jehovah. 31* And I will make my sheep sheep of my pasturing on their soil: I am your God, quoth the Lord Jehovah.’”