‘^[a]What was your mother?
A lioness among lions!
She lay down among young lions;
She reared her cubs.
³ So she brought up one of her cubs;
He became a lion,
And he learned to tear his prey;
He devoured men.
⁴ Then nations heard about him;
He was captured in their pit,
And they ^(C)brought him with hooks
To the land of Egypt.
⁵ Then she saw, as she waited,
That her hope was lost,
So she took ^[b]another of her cubs
And made him a young lion.
⁶ And he ^(D)walked about among the lions;
He became a young lion;
He learned to tear his prey;
He devoured men.
⁷ He ^[c]knew how to destroy their ^[d]fortified towers
And laid waste their cities;
And the land was in desolation, as well as its fullness
Because of the sound of his roaring.
⁸ Then ^(E)nations put themselves against him
All around from their provinces,
And they spread their net over him;
He was captured in their pit.
^9 (F)They put him in a cage with hooks
And ^(G)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 was ^(H)like a vine in your ^[e]vineyard,
Planted by the waters;
It was fruitful and full of branches
Because of abundant waters.
¹¹ And it had ^[f](I)strong thick branches fit for scepters of rulers,
And its ^(J)height was exalted above the clouds
So that it was seen in its exaltedness with the mass of its foliage.
¹² But it was ^(K)uprooted in wrath;
It was ^(L)cast down to the ground;
And the ^(M)east wind dried up its fruit.
Its ^[g](N)strong thick branch ^[h]was torn off
So that ^[i]it dried up;
The fire consumed it.
¹³ So now it is planted in the ^(O)wilderness,
In a dry and thirsty land.
¹⁴ And ^(P)fire has gone out from its thick branch;
It has consumed its shoots and fruit,
So that there is not in it a ^[j]strong thick branch,
A scepter to rule.’”