Ezekiel 19
New King James Version
Israel Degraded
19 “Moreover (A)take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel, 2 and say:
‘What is your mother? A lioness:
She lay down among the lions;
Among the young lions she nourished her cubs.
3 She brought up one of her cubs,
And (B)he became a young lion;
He learned to catch prey,
And he devoured men.
4 The nations also heard of him;
He was trapped in their pit,
And they brought him with chains to the land of (C)Egypt.
5 ‘When she saw that she waited, that her hope was lost,
She took (D)another of her cubs and made him a young lion.
6 (E)He roved among the lions,
And (F)became a young lion;
He learned to catch prey;
He devoured men.
7 [a]He knew their desolate places,
And laid waste their cities;
The land with its fullness was desolated
By the noise of his roaring.
8 (G)Then the nations set against him from the provinces on every side,
And spread their net over him;
(H)He was trapped in their pit.
9 (I)They put him in a cage with [b]chains,
And brought him to the king of Babylon;
They brought him in nets,
That his voice should no longer be heard on (J)the mountains of Israel.
10 ‘Your mother was (K)like a vine in your [c]bloodline,
Planted by the waters,
(L)Fruitful and full of branches
Because of many waters.
11 She had strong branches for scepters of rulers.
(M)She towered in stature above the thick branches,
And was seen in her height amid the [d]dense foliage.
12 But she was (N)plucked up in fury,
She was cast down to the ground,
And the (O)east wind dried her fruit.
Her strong branches were broken and withered;
The fire consumed them.
13 And now she is planted in the wilderness,
In a dry and thirsty land.
14 (P)Fire has come out from a rod of her branches
And devoured her fruit,
So that she has no strong branch—a scepter for ruling.’ ”
(Q)This is a lamentation, and has become a lamentation.
Footnotes
- Ezekiel 19:7 LXX He stood in insolence; Tg. He destroyed its palaces; Vg. He learned to make widows
- Ezekiel 19:9 Or hooks
- Ezekiel 19:10 Lit. blood, so with MT, Syr., Vg.; LXX like a flower on a pomegranate tree; Tg. in your likeness
- Ezekiel 19:11 Or many branches
Ezekiel 19
Amplified Bible
Dirge for the Princes of Israel
19 “As for you, take up a dirge (funeral poem to be sung) for the princes of Israel 2 and say,
‘What was your mother [Jerusalem and Judah]?
A lioness among lions!
She lay down among young lions,
She reared her cubs.
3
‘When she [the royal mother-city] brought up [Jehoahaz] one of her cubs,
He became a [young] lion,
And he learned to catch and tear the prey;
He devoured men.(A)
4
‘The nations heard about him;
He was captured in their pit,
And they brought him with hooks
To the land of Egypt.(B)
5
‘When she saw, as she waited,
That her hope was lost,
She took [a]another of her cubs
And made him a young lion.(C)
6
‘And he moved among the lions;
He became a young lion,
He learned to tear the prey;
He devoured men.
7
‘He destroyed their palaces
And he flattened their cities;
And the land and all who were in it were appalled
By the sound of his roaring.
8
‘Then the nations set against him (the king)
On every side from the provinces,
And they spread their net over him;
He was captured in their pit.(D)
9
‘They put him in a cage with hooks and chains
And 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 [Jerusalem] was like a vine in your [b]vineyard,
Planted by the waters;
It was fruitful and full of branches
Because of abundant water.(E)
11
‘And it had strong branches for the scepters of rulers,
And its height was raised above the thick branches and into the clouds
So that it was seen [easily] in its height with the mass of its branches.
12
‘But the vine was uprooted in [godly] wrath [by His representative]
And it was thrown down to the ground;
The east wind dried up its fruit.
Its strong branch was broken off
So that it withered;
The fire [of God’s judgment] consumed it.
13
‘And now it is transplanted in the wilderness,
In a dry and thirsty land [of Babylon].
14
‘And the fire [of Zedekiah’s rebellion] has gone out from its branch;
It has consumed the vine’s shoots and fruit,
So that it has in it no [longer a] strong branch
As a scepter to rule.’”
This is a dirge (funeral poem to be sung), and has become a dirge.
Footnotes
- Ezekiel 19:5 Either a timely reference to Jehoiachin who reigned only three months, or a prediction regarding Zedekiah. Both rulers were exiled to Babylon.
- Ezekiel 19:10 So with some ancient mss; MT blood.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, CA 90631. All rights reserved.
