Ezekiel 19

What was your mother? A lioness!

Among lions she crouched;

in the midst of young lions

she reared her cubs.

₃And she brought up one of her cubs;

he became a young lion,

and he learned to catch prey;

he devoured men.

₄The nations heard about him;

he was caught in their pit,

and they brought him with hooks

to the land of Egypt.

₅When she saw that she waited in vain,

that her hope was lost,

she took another of her cubs

and made him a young lion.

₆He prowled among the lions;

he became a young lion,

and he learned to catch prey;

he devoured men,

₇and seized their widows.

He laid waste their cities,

and the land was appalled and all who were in it

at the sound of his roaring.

₈Then the nations set against him

from provinces on every side;

they spread their net over him;

he was taken in their pit.

₉With hooks they put him in a cage

and brought him to the king of Babylon;

they brought him into custody,

that his voice should no more be heard

on the mountains of Israel.

₁₀Your mother was like a vine in a vineyard

planted by the water,

fruitful and full of branches

by reason of abundant water.

₁₁Its strong stems became

rulers’ scepters;

it towered aloft

among the thick boughs;

it was seen in its height

with the mass of its branches.

₁₂But the vine was plucked up in fury,

cast down to the ground;

the east wind dried up its fruit;

they were stripped off and withered.

As for its strong stem,

fire consumed it.

₁₃Now it is planted in the wilderness,

in a dry and thirsty land.

₁₄And fire has gone out from the stem of its shoots,

has consumed its fruit,

so that there remains in it no strong stem,

no scepter for ruling.