Ezekiel sings a lament over the princes of Israel, picturing them as young lions caught in a pit and taken to Egypt and Babylon. The mother is like a vine, now planted in the wilderness and consumed by fire.
1 Moreover take thou up a lamentation for the princes of Israel ,
2 And say , What is thy mother ? A lioness : she lay down among lions , she nourished her whelps among young lions .
3 And she brought up one of her whelps : it became a young lion , and it learned to catch the prey ; it devoured men .
4 The nations also heard of him; he was taken in their pit , and they brought him with chains unto the land of Egypt .
5 Now 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 .
6 And he went up and down among the lions , he became a young lion , and learned to catch the prey , and devoured men .
7 And he knew their desolate palaces , and he laid waste their cities ; and the land was desolate , and the fulness thereof, 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 ward in chains , and brought him to the king of Babylon : they brought him into holds , 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 waters : she was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters .
11 And she had strong rods for the sceptres of them that bare rule , and her stature was exalted among the thick branches , and she appeared in her height with the multitude of her branches .
12 But 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.
13 And now she is planted in the wilderness , in a dry and thirsty ground .
14 And fire is gone out of a rod of her branches , which hath devoured her fruit , so that she hath no strong rod to be a sceptre to rule . This is a lamentation , and shall be for a lamentation .