Listen to the wailing of the shepherds,
The shepherds and lions are heard wailing because their glory and thickets are destroyed.
This verse links ruined landscape with ruined leadership.
1Open your doors, O Lebanon, 2Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen; 3Listen to the wailing of the shepherds, 4This is what the LORD my God says: “Pasture the flock marked for slaughter, 5whose buyers slaughter them without remorse. Those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the LORD, for I am rich!’ Even their own shepherds have no compassion on them. 6For I will no longer have compassion on the people of the land, declares the LORD, but behold, I will cause each man to fall into the hands of his neighbor and his king, who will devastate the land, and I will not deliver it from their hands.” 7So I pastured the flock marked for slaughter, especially the afflicted of the flock. Then I took for myself two staffs, calling one Favor and the other Union, and I pastured the flock. 8And in one month I dismissed three shepherds. 9My soul grew impatient with the flock, and their souls also detested me. Then I said, “I will no longer shepherd you. Let the dying die, and the perishing perish; and let those who remain devour one another’s flesh.”