Ezekiel 19

Chapter 19

Lament for the Princes of Israel

¹“As for you, take up a ^alamentation for the ^bprinces of Israel

²and say,

‘¹What was your mother?

A lioness among lions!

She lay down among young lions,

She reared her cubs.

³‘When she brought up one of her cubs,

He became a lion,

And he learned to tear his prey;

He devoured men.

⁴‘Then nations heard about him;

He was captured in their pit,

And they ^abrought him with hooks

To the land of Egypt.

⁵‘When she saw, as she waited,

That her hope was lost,

She took ¹another of her cubs

And made him a young lion.

⁶‘And he ^awalked about among the lions;

He became a young lion,

He learned to tear his prey;

He devoured men.

⁷‘He ¹destroyed their ²fortified towers

And laid waste their cities;

And the land and its fullness were appalled

Because of the sound of his roaring.

⁸‘Then ^anations set against him

On every side from their provinces,

And they spread their net over him;

He was captured in their pit.

⁹‘^aThey put him in a cage with hooks

And ^bbrought him to the king of Babylon;

They brought him in hunting nets

So that his voice would be heard no more

On the mountains of Israel.

¹⁰‘Your mother was ^alike a vine in your ¹vineyard,

Planted by the waters;

It was fruitful and full of branches

Because of abundant waters.

¹¹‘And it had ^1astrong branches fit for scepters of rulers,

And its ^bheight was raised above the clouds

So that it was seen in its height with the mass of its branches.

¹²‘But it was ^aplucked up in fury;

It was ^bcast down to the ground;

And the ^ceast wind dried up its fruit.

Its ^1dstrong branch ²was torn off

So that ³it withered;

The fire consumed it.

¹³‘And now it is planted in the ^awilderness,

In a dry and thirsty land.

¹⁴‘And ^afire has gone out from its branch;

It has consumed its shoots and fruit,

So that there is not in it a ¹strong branch,

A scepter to rule.’ ”

This is a lamentation, and has become a lamentation.