Ezekiel 19

Complete Jewish Bible

‘What a mother you had —
a lioness among lions!
She lay down among young lions
and reared her cubs.
³ One of her cubs she singled out:
he became a young lion,
he learned to seize his prey,
he became a man-eater.
⁴ The nations sounded an alarm against him;
and he was caught in their pit.
With hooks they dragged him off
to the land of Egypt.
⁵ When she saw that she had been thwarted,
that her hope was lost,
she took another of her cubs
and made a young lion of him.
⁶ He prowled among the lions,
grew to be a young lion,
learned to seize his prey
and became a man-eater.
⁷ He raped their widows
and destroyed their cities;
the land and all in it were appalled
at the sound of his roaring.
⁸ The nations set a snare for him
from the provinces all around,
they spread their net over him,
and he was caught in their pit.
⁹ With hooks they put him in a cage
and brought him to the king of Bavel
to imprison him in a fortress,
so that his roar would be heard no more
on the mountains of Isra’el.

¹⁰ “‘Your mother was like a strong grapevine
planted by the water.
It was fruitful and luxuriant
because of the abundant water.
¹¹ It had strong branches
to be used as scepters by rulers;
besides having thick foliage,
it grew taller and taller,
until its height was noticed,
with its mass of branches.
¹² But it was torn up in fury
and flung on the ground.
An east wind withered her fruit,
her strong branches were broken off;
they dried up; and fire consumed the vine.
¹³ It has been transplanted to the desert,
to a dry, thirsty land.
¹⁴ Fire has gone out from its own branches,
burning up its fruit,
so that now it has no strong branch
to be a ruler’s scepter.’”

This lamentation became very well known.