Kingly Power Abused

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

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

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

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

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

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

7He 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.

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

9And 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.

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

11And 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.

12But 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.

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

14And 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.