19
Israel Degraded
1“Moreover ⚓take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,
2and say:
‘What is your mother? A lioness:
She lay down among the lions;
Among the young lions she nourished her cubs.
3She brought up one of her cubs,
And ⚓he became a young lion;
He learned to catch prey,
And he devoured men.
4The nations also heard of him;
He was trapped in their pit,
And they brought him with chains to the land of ⚓Egypt.
5‘When she saw that she waited, that her hope was lost,
She took ⚓another of her cubs and made him a young lion.
6⚓He roved among the lions,
And ⚓became a young lion;
He learned to catch prey;
He devoured men.
7He knew their desolate places,
And laid waste their cities;
The land with its fullness was desolated
By the noise of his roaring.
8⚓Then the nations set against him from the provinces on every side,
And spread their net over him;
⚓He was trapped in their pit.
9⚓They put him in a cage with chains,
And brought him to the king of Babylon;
They brought him in nets,
That his voice should no longer be heard on ⚓the mountains of Israel.
10‘Your mother was⚓like a vine in your bloodline,
Planted by the waters,
⚓Fruitful and full of branches
Because of many waters.
11She had strong branches for scepters of rulers.
⚓She towered in stature above the thick branches,
And was seen in her height amid the dense foliage.
12But she was ⚓plucked up in fury,
She was cast down to the ground,
And the ⚓east wind dried her fruit.
Her strong branches were broken and withered;
The fire consumed them.
13And now she is planted in the wilderness,
In a dry and thirsty land.
14⚓Fire has come out from a rod of her branches
And devoured her fruit,
So that she has no strong branch— a scepter for ruling.’ ”
⚓This is a lamentation, and has become a lamentation.