1 And you,xch. 26:17; 27:2, 32; 28:12; 32:2; Amos 5:1; [Jer. 7:29] take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,
2 and say:
What was your mother?y[Gen. 49:9] A lioness!
Among lions she crouched;
in the midst of young lions
she reared her cubs.
3 And she brought up one of her cubs;
z[ch. 22:25; 32:2; 2 Kgs. 23:30, 31] he became a young lion,
ach. 22:25, 27 and he learned to catch prey;
he devoured men.
4 The nations heard about him;
bLam. 4:20 he was caught in their pit,
c[2 Kgs. 23:33, 34; Jer. 22:11, 12] and they brought him with hooks
to the land of Egypt.
5 When she saw that she waited in vain,
that her hope was lost,
d2 Kgs. 23:34, 36 she took another of her cubs
and made him a young lion.
6 He prowled among the lions;
he became a young lion,
and he learned to catch prey;
he devoured men,
7 and seized their widows.
He laid waste their cities,
and the land was appalled and all who were in it
at the sound of his roaring.
8 e[2 Chr. 36:6] Then the nations set against him
from provinces on every side;
fSee ch. 12:13 they spread their net over him;
b[See ver. 4 above] he was taken in their pit.
9 With hookse[See ver. 8 above] they put him in a cage1Or in a wooden collar
andg[Jer. 22:26, 27] brought him to the king of Babylon;
they brought him into custody,
that his voice should no more be heard
onhSee ch. 6:2 the mountains of Israel.
10 Your mother wasiSee ch. 15:6 like a vine in a vineyard
planted by the water,
j[Ps. 80:9] fruitful and full of branches
k[Deut. 8:7] by reason of abundant water.
11 Its strong stems became
rulers' scepters;
it towered aloft
among the thick boughs;1Or the clouds
it was seen in its height
with the mass of its branches.
12 But the vine was plucked up in fury,
cast down to the ground;
lch. 17:10; [Hos. 13:15] the east wind dried up its fruit;
they were stripped off and withered.
As for its strong stem,
fire consumed it.
13 m[ch. 1:1; Hos. 2:3; See 2 Kgs. 24:12-16] Now it is planted in the wilderness,
in a dry and thirsty land.
14 n[2 Kgs. 24:20]; See ch. 17:15-19 And fire has gone out from the stem of its shoots,
has consumed its fruit,
o[ver. 11, 12] so that there remains in it no strong stem,
no scepter for ruling. This ispSee ver. 1 a lamentation and has become a lamentation.