Israel Degraded

19 “Moreover atake up a lamentation for the princes of Israel, 2 and say:

‘What is your mother? A lioness:

She lay down among the lions;

Among the young lions she nourished her cubs.

3 She brought up one of her cubs,

And bhe became a young lion;

He learned to catch prey,

And he devoured men.

4 The nations also heard of him;

He was trapped in their pit,

And they brought him with chains to the land of cEgypt.

5 ‘When she saw that she waited, that her hope was lost,

She took danother of her cubs and made him a young lion.

6 eHe roved among the lions,

And fbecame a young lion;

He learned to catch prey;

He devoured men.

7 1He knew their desolate places,

And laid waste their cities;

The land with its fullness was desolated

By the noise of his roaring.

8 gThen the nations set against him from the provinces on every side,

And spread their net over him;

hHe was trapped in their pit.

9 iThey put him in a cage with 2chains,

And brought him to the king of Babylon;

They brought him in nets,

That his voice should no longer be heard on jthe mountains of Israel.

10 ‘Your mother was klike a vine in your 3bloodline,

Planted by the waters,

lFruitful and full of branches

Because of many waters.

11 She had strong branches for scepters of rulers.

mShe towered in stature above the thick branches,

And was seen in her height amid the 4dense foliage.

12 But she was nplucked up in fury,

She was cast down to the ground,

And the oeast wind dried her fruit.

Her strong branches were broken and withered;

The fire consumed them.

13 And now she is planted in the wilderness,

In a dry and thirsty land.

14 pFire has come out from a rod of her branches

And devoured her fruit,

So that she has no strong branch—a scepter for ruling.’ ”

qThis is a lamentation, and has become a lamentation.