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- Moreover, take thou up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,
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- and say: How was thy mother a lioness;
among lions she couched, in the midst of the young lions she reared her whelps!
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- And she brought up one of her whelps, he became a young lion;
and he learned to catch the prey, he devoured men.
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- Then the nations assembled against him, he was taken in their pit;
and they brought him with hooks unto the land of Egypt.
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- Now when she saw that she was disappointed, and her hope was lost, then she took another of her whelps, and made him a young lion.
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- And he went up and down among the lions, he became a young lion;
and he learned to catch the prey, he devoured men.
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- And he knew their castles, and laid waste their cities;
and the land was desolate, and the fulness thereof, because of the noise of his roaring.
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- Then the nations cried out against him on every side from the provinces;
and they spread their net over him, he was taken in their pit.
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- And they put him in a cage with hooks, and brought him to the king of Babylon;
that they might bring him into strongholds, so that his voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel.
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- Thy mother was like a vine, in thy likeness, planted by the waters;
she was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters.
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- And she had strong rods to be sceptres for them that bore rule;
and her stature was exalted among the thick branches, and she was seen in her height with the multitude of her tendrils.
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- But she was plucked up in fury, she was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up her fruit;
her strong rods were broken off and withered, the fire consumed her.
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- And now she is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty ground.
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- And fire is gone out of the rod of her branches, it hath devoured her fruit, so that there is in her no strong rod to be a sceptre to rule." This is a lamentation, and it was for a lamentation.
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