JPS - Ezekiel - 19

19:1  Moreover, take thou up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,

19:2  and say: How was thy mother a lioness; among lions she couched, in the midst of the young lions she reared her whelps!

19:3  And she brought up one of her whelps, he became a young lion; and he learned to catch the prey, he devoured men.

19:4  Then the nations assembled against him, he was taken in their pit; and they brought him with hooks unto the land of Egypt.

19:5  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.

19:6  And he went up and down among the lions, he became a young lion; and he learned to catch the prey, he devoured men.

19:7  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.

19:8  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.

19:9  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.

19:10  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.

19:11  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.

19:12  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.

19:13  And now she is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty ground.

19:14  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.