2 

How like a lioness among lions

was your mother!

She crouched among young lions

as she reared her whelps;

3 

one whelp she brought up,

a lion young;

he learned to seize his prey,

men he devoured;

4 

the nations raised a hue and cry,

they caught him in their pit,

and dragged him off with hooks

into the land of Egypt.

5 

She saw he had been reft from her,

her hope had vanished;

she took and reared another whelp,

a lion young,

6 

who lived among the lions,

and grew up a young lion;

he learned to seize his prey--

men he devoured,

7 

ravaging their palaces,

and wasting their towns,

till all in the land were a-dread

at his roar.

8 

Then the nations raised a hue and cry

from the realms around,

spread nets for him,

and caught him in their pit,

9 

dragged him off with hooks, a captive,

to the king of Babylon,

that no more his voice might sound

on the uplands of Israel.

10 

Your mother was like a vine in a vineyard,

planted beside streams,

fruitful, rich in branches,

thanks to the wealth of water;

11 

she had a great branch that grew

into a royal sceptre,

soaring to the clouds,

seen afar amid a mass of boughs.

12 

But in wrath the vine was torn up,

flung to the ground;

the east wind withered up its fruit,

and its great branch was broken off;

13 

now it is planted in a desert,

in a waterless land.

14 

Fire spread from the branch,

and burned the boughs,

and now the vine has no great branch,

no royal sceptre.

This is a dirge, and current as a dirge. * * *