Israel Degraded

19 “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 desolatedBy 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 branchesBecause 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 branchesAnd devoured her fruit,So that she has no strong branch— a scepter for ruling.’”

This is a lamentation, and has become a lamentation.