19 “Sing this death dirge for the leaders of Israel: ² What a woman your mother was—like a lioness! Her children were like lion’s cubs! ³ One of her cubs, King Jehoahaz,^[a] grew into a strong young lion and learned to catch prey and became a man-eater. ⁴ Then the nations called out their hunters; they trapped him in a pit and brought him in chains to Egypt.

⁵ “When Israel, the mother lion, saw that all her hopes for him were gone, she took another of her cubs, King Jehoiachin,^[b] and taught him to be ‘king of the beasts.’ ⁶ He became a leader among the lions and learned to catch prey, and he too became a man-eater. ⁷ He demolished the palaces of the surrounding nations and ruined their cities; their farms were desolated, their crops destroyed; everyone in the land shook with terror when they heard him roar. ⁸ Then the armies of the nations surrounded him, coming from every side, and trapped him in a pit and captured him. ⁹ They prodded him into a cage and brought him before the king of Babylon. He was held in captivity so that his voice could never again be heard upon the mountains of Israel.

¹⁰ “Your mother was like a vine beside an irrigation ditch, with lush, green foliage because of all the water. ¹¹ Its strongest branch became a ruler’s scepter, and it was very great, towering above the others and noticed from far away. ¹² But the vine was uprooted in fury and thrown down to the ground. Its branches were broken and withered by a strong wind from the east; the fruit was destroyed by fire. ¹³ Now the vine is planted in the wilderness where the ground is hard and dry. ¹⁴ It is decaying from within;^[c] no strong branch remains. The fulfillment of this sad prophecy has already begun, and there is more ahead.”