A Lament for the Princes of Israel

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

What was your mother? A lioness!

Among lions she crouched;

in the midst of young lions

she reared her cubs.

³And she brought up one of her cubs;

he became a young lion,

and he learned to catch prey;

he devoured men.

⁴The nations heard about him;

he was caught in their pit,

and they brought him with hooks

to the land of Egypt.

⁵When she saw that she waited in vain,

that her hope was lost,

she took another of her cubs

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 seized1 their widows.

He 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

from provinces on every side;

they spread their net over him;

he was taken in their pit.

⁹With hooks they put him in a cage2

and brought him to the king of Babylon;

they brought him into custody,

that his voice should no more be heard

on the mountains of Israel.

¹⁰Your mother was like a vine in a vineyard3

planted by the water,

fruitful and full of branches

by reason of abundant water.

¹¹Its strong stems became

rulers' scepters;

it towered aloft

among the thick boughs;4

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 up its fruit;

they were stripped off and withered.

As for its strong stem,

fire consumed it.

¹³Now it is planted in the wilderness,

in a dry and thirsty land.

¹⁴And fire has gone out from the stem of its shoots,

has consumed its fruit,

so that there remains in it no strong stem,

no scepter for ruling.

This is a lamentation and has become a lamentation.