Ezekiel / A Lament for Israel's Princes

A Lament for Israel's Princes

Ezekiel 19:1-14

Chapter 19

¹ And you, lift up a lamentation over the chieftains of Israel. ² And you shall say, "What is your mother? A lioness among lions; she couched in the midst of villages; she multiplied her cubs." ³ And she brought up one from her cubs; it was a lion cub, and he learned to tear prey—he ate humanity. ⁴ Nations heard him; he was caught in their pit, and they brought him with hooks to the land of Egypt. ⁵ And she saw that her inheritance had perished, her hope, and she took one from her cubs; she made him a lion cub. ⁶ And he walked about in the midst of lions; he was a lion, and he learned to tear prey—prey of men he ate. ⁷ And he knew his widows, and he cut off his cities, and it set Earth, and it filled from the voice of his roaring. ⁸ And they set upon him all the nations from around the provinces, and they spread their net over him; he was caught in their pit. ⁹ And they put him in a prison in chains, and they brought him to the king of Babel. They brought him into divine refuges/strongholds so that his voice would not be heard anymore on the mountains of Israel. ¹⁰ Your mother was like a vine in your blood upon waters, planted; its fruit and its branch she was from many waters. ¹¹ And it had staffs of might for the tribal staffs of the rulers, and its height rose above the thickets, and it was seen in its height amid the abundance of its branches. ¹² And it was plucked up in anger; it was cast to the earth, and the east wind withered its fruit. They broke apart and dried up—its strong staff; fire devoured it. ¹³ And now she is planted in the wilderness, in a land of drought and thirst. ¹⁴ And fire went out from a rod of her branches; it devoured her fruit, and there was not in it a rod of might, a scepter to rule. It is a lament, and it has become a lament.