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Israel Degraded

19As for you, raise up a lamentation for the princes of Israel, ²and say:
What a lioness was your mother
   among lions!
She lay down among young lions,
   rearing her cubs.
³ She raised up one of her cubs;
   he became a young lion,
and he learned to catch prey;
   he devoured humans.
⁴ The nations sounded an alarm against him;
   he was caught in their pit;
and they brought him with hooks
   to the land of Egypt.
⁵ When she saw that she was thwarted,
   that her hope was lost,
she took another of her cubs
   and made him a young lion.
⁶ He prowled among the lions;
   he became a young lion,
and he learned to catch prey;
   he devoured people.
⁷ And he ravaged their strongholds,^*
   and laid waste their towns;
the land was appalled, and all in it,
   at the sound of his roaring.
⁸ The nations set upon him
   from the provinces all around;
they spread their net over him;
   he was caught in their pit.
⁹ With hooks they put him in a cage,
   and brought him to the king of Babylon;
   they brought him into custody,
so that his voice should be heard no more
   on the mountains of Israel.
¹⁰ Your mother was like a vine in a vineyard^*
   transplanted by the water,
fruitful and full of branches
   from abundant water.
¹¹ Its strongest stem became
   a ruler’s sceptre;^*
it towered aloft
   among the thick boughs;
it stood out in its height
   with its mass of branches.
¹² But it was plucked up in fury,
   cast down to the ground;
the east wind dried it up;
   its fruit was stripped off,
its strong stem was withered;
   the fire consumed it.
¹³ Now it is transplanted into the wilderness,
   into a dry and thirsty land.
¹⁴ And fire has gone out from its stem,
   has consumed its branches and fruit,
so that there remains in it no strong stem,
   no sceptre for ruling.

This is a lamentation, and it is used as a lamentation.