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Dirge for the Princes of Israel

¹ "As for you, take up a ^(C1)dirge (funeral poem to be sung) for the ^(C2)princes of Israel² and say,

'What was your mother Jerusalem and Judah?
A lioness among lions!
She lay down among young lions,
She reared her cubs.

³ 'When she the royal mother-city brought up Jehoahaz one of her cubs,
He became a young lion,
And he learned to catch and tear the prey;
He devoured men. ^(VR1)

⁴ 'The nations heard about him;
He was captured in their pit,
And they ^(C1)brought him with hooks
To the land of Egypt. ^(VR1)

⁵ 'When she saw, as she waited,
That her hope was lost,
She took ^(F1)another of her cubs
And made him a young lion. ^(VR1)

⁶ 'And he ^(C1)moved among the lions;
He became a young lion,
He learned to tear the prey;
He devoured men.

⁷ 'He destroyed their palaces
And he flattened their cities;
And the land and all who were in it were appalled
By the sound of his roaring.

⁸ 'Then the ^(C1)nations set against him (the king)
On every side from the provinces,
And they spread their net over him;
He was captured in their pit. ^(VR1)

⁹ '^(C1)They put him in a cage with hooks and chains
And ^(C2)brought him to the king of Babylon;
They brought him in hunting nets
So that his voice would be heard no more
On the mountains of Israel.

¹⁰ 'Your mother Jerusalem was ^(C1)like a vine in your ^(F1)vineyard,
Planted by the waters;
It was fruitful and full of branches
Because of abundant water. ^(VR1)

¹¹ 'And it had ^(C1)strong branches for the scepters of rulers,
And its ^(C2)height was raised above the thick branches and into the clouds
So that it was seen easily in its height with the mass of its branches.

¹² 'But the vine was ^(C1)uprooted in godly wrath by His representative
And it was ^(C2)thrown down to the ground;
The ^(C3)east wind dried up its fruit.
Its ^(C4)strong branch was broken off
So that it withered;
The fire of God's judgment consumed it.

¹³ 'And now it is transplanted in the ^(C1)wilderness,
In a dry and thirsty land of Babylon.

¹⁴ 'And the ^(C1)fire of Zedekiah's rebellion has gone out from its branch;
It has consumed the vine's shoots and fruit,
So that it has in it no longer a strong branch
As a scepter to rule.'"
This is a dirge (funeral poem to be sung), and has become a dirge.