A Lament for the Princes of Israel
“As for you, take up a alamentation for the bprinces of Israel 2 and say,
‘What was your mother?
A lioness among lions!
She lay down among young lions;
She reared her cubs.
3 So 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 Then she saw, as she waited,
That her hope was lost,
So she took another 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 knew how to destroy their fortified towers
And laid waste their cities;
And the land was in desolation, as well as its fullness
Because of the sound of his roaring.
8 Then anations put themselves against him
All around 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 vineyard,
Planted by the waters;
It was fruitful and full of branches
Because of abundant waters.
11 And it had astrong thick branches fit for scepters of rulers,
And its bheight was exalted above the clouds
So that it was seen in its exaltedness with the mass of its foliage.
12 But it was auprooted in wrath;
It was bcast down to the ground;
And the ceast wind dried up its fruit.
Its dstrong thick branch was torn off
So that it dried up;
The fire consumed it.
13 So now it is planted in the awilderness,
In a dry and thirsty land.
14 And afire has gone out from its thick branch;
It has consumed its shoots and fruit,
So that there is not in it a strong thick branch,
A scepter to rule.’”
This is a lamentation and has become a lamentation.