Israel Degraded

¹ “Moreover take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel, ² and say:

‘ What is your mother? A lioness:
She lay down among the lions;
Among the young lions she nourished her cubs.
³ She brought up one of her cubs,
And he became a young lion;
He learned to catch prey,
And he devoured men.
⁴ The nations also heard of him;
He was trapped in their pit,
And they brought him with chains to the land of Egypt.
⁵ ‘ When she saw that she waited, that her hope was lost,
She took another of her cubs and made him a young lion.
⁶ He roved among the lions,
And became a young lion;
He learned to catch prey;
He devoured men.
⁷ He knew their desolate places,^[a]
And laid waste their cities;
The land with its fullness was desolated
By the noise of his roaring.
⁸ Then the nations set against him from the provinces on every side,
And spread their net over him;
He was trapped in their pit.
⁹ They put him in a cage with chains,
And brought him to the king of Babylon;
They brought him in nets,
That his voice should no longer be heard on the mountains of Israel.
¹⁰ ‘ Your mother was like a vine in your bloodline,^[b]
Planted by the waters,
Fruitful and full of branches
Because of many waters.
¹¹ She had strong branches for scepters of rulers.
She towered in stature above the thick branches,
And was seen in her height amid the dense foliage.
¹² But she was plucked up in fury,
She was cast down to the ground,
And the east wind dried her fruit.
Her strong branches were broken and withered;
The fire consumed them.
¹³ And now she is planted in the wilderness,
In a dry and thirsty land.
¹⁴ Fire has come out from a rod of her branches
And devoured her fruit,
So that she has no strong branch— a scepter for ruling.’”

This is a lamentation, and has become a lamentation.