Kingly Power Abused

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

2And say, What is your mother? A lioness: she lay down among lions, she nourished her whelps among young lions.

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

4The nations also heard of him; he was taken in their pit, and they brought him with chains to 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 learned to catch the prey, and devoured men.

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

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

9And they put him in ward in chains, and brought him to the king of Babylon: they brought him into holds, that his voice should no more be heard on the mountains of Israel.

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

11And she had strong rods for the scepters of them that bore rule, and her stature was exalted among the thick branches, and she appeared in her height with the multitude of her 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 and withered; the fire consumed them.

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

14And fire is gone out of a rod of her branches, which has devoured her fruit, so that she has no strong rod to be a scepter to rule. This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.