19
1 Moreover take thou up a kinah (lament) for the nasi'im of Yisroel, 2 And say:
What is immecha, a lioness?
She lay down among arayot (lions),
rearing her cubs among young lions.
3 And she brought up one of her cubs;
it became a strong lion,
and it learned to tear teref (prey);
it devoured adam.
4 The Goyim also heard of him;
he was trapped in their shachat (pit),
and they brought him with hooks
unto Eretz Mitzrayim.
5 Now when she saw that in vain she had waited,
and her tikvah (hope) was lost,
then she took another of her cubs,
and made him a strong lion.
6 And he went up and down among the arayot (lions),
he became a strong lion,
and learned to tear the teref,
and devoured adam.
7 And he destroyed their strongholds,
and he laid waste their towns;
and eretz and the fulness thereof became desolate,
through the sound of his roaring.
8 Then the Goyim set against him
on every side from the medinot (provinces),
and spread their reshet (net) over him;
he was trapped in their shachat (pit).*
9 And they put him in a neckstock with hooks,
and brought him to Melech Bavel;
they brought him into metzodot (fortresses),
that his voice should no more be heard
upon the harim of Yisroel.
10 Immecha is like a gefen (vine) full of shoots,
planted by the mayim;
she was fruitful and full of branches
by reason of mayim rabbim.
11 And she had strong branches
that became the shivtei moshlim (scepters of rulers),
and her stature towered
above the thick branches,
and she was seen in her height
amid the dense branches.
12 But she was uprooted in chemah (fury),
she was cast down to the ground,
and the east wind dried up her p'ri;
her strong branches were broken and withered;
the eish consumed them.
13 And now she is planted in the midbar,
in a dry and thirsty eretz.
14 And eish is gone out of a rod of her branches,
which hath devoured her p'ri,
so that she hath no strong branch
to be a shevet (sceptre) to rule.
This is a kinah lament,
and shall be for a funeral dirge.
* 19:8 trap