¹ And thou, take thou up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,

² and say, What was thy mother? A lioness: she lay down among lions, she nourished her whelps in the midst of the young lions.

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

⁴ And the nations heard of him; he was taken in their pit, and they brought him with nose-rings into the land of Egypt.

⁵ And when she saw that she had waited [and] her hope was lost, she took another of her whelps, [and] made him a young lion.

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

⁷ And he knew their [desolate] palaces, and he laid waste their cities, so that the land was desolate, and all it contained, by the noise of his roaring.

⁸ Then the nations set against him on every side from the provinces, and spread their net over him; he was taken in their pit.

⁹ And they put him in a cage with nose-rings, and brought him to the king of Babylon; they brought him into strongholds, that his voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel.

¹⁰ Thy mother was as a vine, in thy rest, planted by the waters: it was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters.

¹¹ And it had strong rods for sceptres of them that bear rule, and its stature was exalted between the thick boughs; and it was conspicuous by its height with the multitude of its branches.

¹² But it was plucked up in fury, it was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up its fruit; its strong rods were broken and withered; the fire consumed them.

¹³ And now it is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty ground:

¹⁴ and a fire is gone out of a rod of its branches, [which] hath devoured its fruit; so that it hath no strong rod to be a sceptre for ruling. This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.