Kingly Power Abused

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

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

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

4The nations also heard of him; he was taken in their pit: and they brought him with hooks unto the land of Egypt.

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

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

7And he knew their palaces, and laid waste their cities; and the land was desolate, and the fulness thereof, because of the noise of his roaring.

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

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

10Thy mother was like a vine, in thy blood, planted by the waters: she was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters.

11And she had strong rods for the sceptres of them that bare rule, and their stature was exalted among the thick boughs, and they were seen in their height with the multitude of their branches.

12But 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 them.

13And now she is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty land.

14And fire is gone out of the rods 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 shall be for a lamentation.