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¹ Moreover do thou take up a lamentation for the prince of Israel, ² and say, Why is thy mother become a whelp in the midst of lions? in the midst of lions she has multiplied her whelps. ³ And one of her whelps sprang forth; he became a lion, and learned to take prey, he devoured men. ⁴ And the nations heard a report of him; he was caught in their pit, and they brought him into the land of Egypt in chains. ⁵ And she saw that he was driven away from her, and her hope of him perished, and she took another of her whelps; she made him a lion. ⁶ And he went up and down in the midst of lions, he became a lion, and learned to take prey, he devoured men. ⁷ And he prowled in his boldness and laid waste their cities, and made the land desolate, and the fullness of it, by the voice of his roaring. ⁸ Then the nations set upon him from the countries round about, and they spread their nets upon him: he was taken in their pit. ⁹ And they put him in chains and in a cage, and he came to the king of Babylon; and he cast him into prison, that his voice should not be heard on the mountains of Israel.

¹⁰ Thy mother was as a vine and as a blossom on a pomegranate tree, planted by water: her fruit and her shoot abounded by reason of much water. ¹¹ And she became a rod for a tribe of princes, and was elevated in her bulk in the midst of other trees, and she saw her bulk in the multitude of her branches. ¹² But she was broken down in wrath, she was cast upon the ground, and the east wind dried up her choice branches: vengeance came upon them, and the rod of her strength was withered; fire consumed it. ¹³ And now they have planted her in the wilderness, in a dry land. ¹⁴ And fire is gone out of a rod of her choice boughs, and has devoured her; and there was no rod of strength in her. Her race is become a parable of lamentation, and it shall be for a lamentation.