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

² And say: Why did thy mother the lioness lie down among the lions, and bring up her whelps in the midst of young lions?

³ And she brought out one of her whelps, and he became a lion: and he learned to catch the prey, and to devour men.

⁴ And the nations heard of him, and took him, but not without receiving wounds: and they brought him in chains into the land of Egypt.

⁵ But she seeing herself weakened, and that her hope was lost, took one of her young lions, and set him up for a lion.

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

⁷ He learned to make widows, and to lay waste their cities: and the land became desolate, and the fulness thereof by the noise of his roaring.

⁸ And the nations Game together against him on every side out of the provinces, and they spread their net over him, in their wounds he was taken.

⁹ And they put him into a cage, they brought him in chains to the king of Babylon: and they cast him into prison, that his voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel.

¹⁰ Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood planted by the water: her fruit and her branches have grown out of many waters.

¹¹ And she hath strong rods to make sceptres for them that bear rule, and her stature was exalted among the branches: and she saw her height in the multitude of her branches.

¹² But she was plucked up in wrath, and cast on the ground, and the burning wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods are withered, and dried up: the fire hath devoured her.

¹³ And now she is transplanted into the desert, in a land not passable, and dry.

¹⁴ And a fire is gone out from a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit: so that she now hath no strong rod, to be a sceptre of rulers. This is a lamentation, and it shall be for a lamentation.

¹ Then the people of the land took Joachaz the son of Josias, and made him king instead of his father in Jerusalem.

² Joachaz was three and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem.

³ And the king of Egypt came to Jerusalem, and deposed him, and condemned the land in a hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold.

⁴ And he made Eliakim his brother king in his stead, over Juda and Jerusalem: and he turned his name to Joakim: but he took Joachaz with him, and carried him away into Egypt.

⁵ Joakim was five and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: and he did evil before the Lord his God.

⁶ Against him came up Nabuchodonosor king of the Chaldeans, and led him bound in chains into Babylon.

⁷ And he carried also thither the vessels of the Lord, and put them in his temple.

⁸ But the rest of the acts of Joakim, and his abominations, which he wrought, and the things that were found in him, are contained in the book of the kings of Juda and Israel. And Joachin his son reigned in his stead.

⁹ Joachin was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord.

¹⁰ And at the return of the year, king Nabuchodonosor sent, and brought him to Babylon, carrying away at the same time the most precious vessels of the house of the Lord: and he made Sedecias his uncle king over Juda and Jerusalem.

¹¹ Sedecias was one and twenty years old when he began to reign: and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem.

¹² And he did evil in the eyes of the Lord his God, and did not reverence the face of Jeremias the prophet speaking to him from the mouth of the Lord.

¹³ Re also revolted from king Nabuchodonosor, who had made him swear by God: and he hardened his neck and his heart, from returning to the Lord the God of Israel.

¹⁴ Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people wickedly transgressed according to all the abominations of the Gentiles: and they defiled the house of the Lord, which he had sanctified to himself in Jerusalem.

¹⁵ And the Lord the God of their fathers sent to them, by the hand of his messengers, rising early, and daily admonishing them: because he spared his people and his dwelling place.

¹⁶ But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused the prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, and there was no remedy.

¹⁷ For he brought upon them the king of the Chaldeans, and he slew their young men with the sword in the house of his sanctuary, he had no compassion on young man, or maiden, old man or even him that stooped for age, but he delivered them all into his hands.

¹⁸ And all the vessels of the house of the Lord, great and small, and the treasures of the temple and of the king, and of the princes he carried away to Babylon.

¹⁹ And the enemies set fire to the house of God, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burnt all the towers, and whatsoever was precious they destroyed.

²⁰ Whosoever escaped the sword, was led into Babylon, and there served the king and his sons till the reign of the king of Persia.

²¹ That the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremias might be fulfilled, and the land might keep her sabbaths: for all the days of the desolation she kept a sabbath, till the seventy years were expired.

²² But in the first year d of Cyrus king of the Persians, to fulfil the word of the Lord, which he had spoken by the mouth of Jeremias, the Lord stirred up the heart of Cyrus king of the Persians who commanded it to be proclaimed through all his kingdom, and by writing also, saying:

²³ Thus saith Cyrus king of the Persians: All the kingdoms of the earth hath the Lord the God of heaven given to me, and he hath charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judea: who is there among you of all his people? the Lord his God be with him, and let him go up.