The parable of the young lions, and of the vineyard that is wasted.
19:1. Moreover take thou up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,
19:2. And say: Why did thy mother the lioness lie down among the lions,
and bring up her whelps in the midst of young lions?
Thy mother the lioness. . .Jerusalem.
19:3. And she brought out one of her whelps, and he became a lion: and
he learned to catch the prey, and to devour men.
One of her whelps. . .Viz., Joachaz, alias Sellum.
19:4. And the nations heard of him, and took him, but not without
receiving wounds: and they brought him in chains into the land of
Egypt.
19:5. But she seeing herself weakened, and that her hope was lost, took
one of her young lions, and set him up for a lion.
One of her young lions. . .Joakim.
19:6. And he went up and down among the lions, and became a lion: and
he learned to catch the prey, and to devour men.
19:7. He learned to make widows, and to lay waste their cities: and the
land became desolate, and the fulness thereof by the noise of his
roaring.
19:8. And the nations came together against him on every side out of
the provinces, and they spread their net over him, in their wounds he
was taken.
19:9. And they put him into a cage, they brought him in chains to the
king of Babylon: and they cast him into prison, that his voice should
no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel.
19:10. Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood planted by the water: her
fruit and her branches have grown out of many waters.
19:11. And she hath strong rods to make sceptres for them that bear
rule, and her stature was exalted among the branches: and she saw her
height in the multitude of her branches.
19:12. But she was plucked up in wrath, and cast on the ground, and the
burning wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods are withered, and
dried up: the fire hath devoured her.
19:13. And now she is transplanted into the desert, in a land not
passable, and dry.
19:14. And a fire is gone out from a rod of her branches, which hath
devoured her fruit: so that she now hath no strong rod, to be a sceptre
of rulers. This is a lamentation, and it shall be for a lamentation.