Ezekiel 19

¹And you, take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel, ²and say:

What a lioness was your mother

among lions!

She couched in the midst of young lions,

rearing her whelps.

³And she brought up one of her whelps;

he became a young lion,

and he learned to catch prey;

he devoured men.

⁴The nations sounded an alarm against him;

he was taken in their pit;

and they brought him with hooks

to the land of Egypt.

⁵When she saw that she was baffled,

that her hope was lost,

she took another of her whelps

and made him a young lion.

⁶He prowled among the lions;

he became a young lion,

and he learned to catch prey;

he devoured men.

⁷And he ravaged their strongholds,

and laid waste their cities;

and the land was appalled and all who were in it

at the sound of his roaring.

⁸Then the nations set against him

snares on every side;

they spread their net over him;

he was taken in their pit.

⁹With hooks they put him in a cage,

and brought him to the king of Babylon;

they brought him into custody,

that his voice should no more be heard

upon the mountains of Israel.

¹⁰Your mother was like a vine in a vineyard

transplanted by the water,

fruitful and full of branches

by reason of abundant water.

¹¹Its strongest stem became

a ruler’s scepter;

it towered aloft

among the thick boughs;

it was seen in its height

with the mass of its branches.

¹²But the vine 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.

¹³Now it is transplanted in the wilderness,

in a dry and thirsty land.

¹⁴And 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 a ruler.

This is a lamentation, and has become a lamentation.