Study

Israel Degraded

19

As for you, raise up a lamentation for the princes of Israel, ²and say:

What a lioness was your mother

among lions!

She lay down among young lions,

rearing her cubs.

3

She raised up one of her cubs;

he became a young lion,

and he learned to catch prey;

he devoured humans.

4

The nations sounded an alarm against him;

he was caught in their pit;

and they brought him with hooks

to the land of Egypt.

5

When she saw that she was thwarted,

that her hope was lost,

she took another of her cubs

and made him a young lion.

6

He prowled among the lions;

he became a young lion,

and he learned to catch prey;

he devoured people.

7

And he ravaged their strongholds,

and laid waste their towns;

the land was appalled, and all in it,

at the sound of his roaring.

8

The nations set upon him

from the provinces all around;

they spread their net over him;

he was caught in their pit.

9

With hooks they put him in a cage,

and brought him to the king of Babylon;

they brought him into custody,

so that his voice should be heard no more

on the mountains of Israel.

10

Your mother was like a vine in a vineyard

transplanted by the water,

fruitful and full of branches

from abundant water.

11

Its strongest stem became

a ruler’s scepter;

it towered aloft

among the thick boughs;

it stood out in its height

with its mass of branches.

12

But it was plucked up in fury,

cast down to the ground;

the east wind dried it up;

its fruit was stripped off,

its strong stem was withered;

the fire consumed it.

13

Now it is transplanted into the wilderness,

into a dry and thirsty land.

14

And fire has gone out from its stem,

has consumed its branches and fruit,

so that there remains in it no strong stem,

no scepter for ruling.

 

This is a lamentation, and it is used as a lamentation.