“This is what the sovereign Lord says: A disaster ¹  – a one-of-a-kind ²  disaster – is coming!

“Suppose I were to send wild animals through the land and kill its children, leaving it desolate, without travelers due to the wild animals.

They were scattered because they had no shepherd, and they became food for every wild beast. ¹ 

I will send famine and wild beasts against you and they will take your children from you. ¹  Plague and bloodshed will overwhelm you, ²  and I will bring a sword against you. I, the Lord, have spoken!”

I will set one shepherd over them, and he will feed them – namely, my servant David. ¹  He will feed them and will be their shepherd.

“‘I will make a covenant of peace with them and will rid the land of wild beasts, so that they can live securely ¹  in the wilderness and even sleep in the woods. ² 

“‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: On that day thoughts will come into your mind, ¹  and you will devise an evil plan.

“For this is what the sovereign Lord says: How much worse will it be when I send my four terrible judgments – sword, famine, wild animals, and plague – to Jerusalem ¹  to kill both people and animals!

As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his scattered sheep, so I will seek out my flock. I will rescue them from all the places where they have been scattered on a cloudy, dark day. ¹ 

As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, my sheep have become prey and have become food for all the wild beasts. There was no shepherd, and my shepherds did not search for my flock, but fed themselves and did not feed my sheep,