The Babylonian Exile

But she seeing herself weakened, and that her hope was lost, took one of her young lions, and set him up for a lion.

And he went up and down among the lions, and became a lion: and he learned to catch the prey, and to devour men.

He learned to make widows, and to lay waste their cities: and the land became desolate, and the fulness thereof by the noise of his roaring.

And the nations came together against him on every side out of the provinces, and they spread their net over him, in their wounds he was taken.

And they put him into a cage, they brought him in chains to the king of Babylon: and they cast him into prison, that his voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel.

Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood planted by the water: her fruit and her branches have grown out of many waters.

And she hath strong rods to make sceptres for them that bear rule, and her stature was exalted among the branches: and she saw her height in the multitude of her branches.

But she was plucked up in wrath, and cast on the ground, and the burning wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods are withered, and dried up: the fire hath devoured her.

And now she is transplanted into the desert, in a land not passable, and dry.

And a fire is gone out from a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit: so that she now hath no strong rod, to be a sceptre of rulers. This is a lamentation, and it shall be for a lamentation.

And it came to pass in the seventh year, in the fifth month, the tenth day of the month: there came men of the ancients of Israel to inquire of the Lord, and they sat before me.

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

Son of man, speak to the ancients of Israel and say to them: Thus saith the Lord God: Are you come to inquire of me? As I live, I will not answer you, saith the Lord God.

If thou judgest them, if thou judgest, O son of man, declare to them the abominations of their fathers.

And say to them: Thus saith the Lord God: In the day when I chose Israel, and lifted up my hand for the race of the house of Jacob: and appeared to them in the land of Egypt, and lifted up my hand for them, saying: I am the Lord your God:

In that day I lifted up my hand for them to bring them out of the land of Egypt, into a land which I had provided for them, flowing with milk and honey, which excelled amongst all lands.

And I said to them: Let every man cast away the scandals of his eyes, and defile not yourselves with the idols of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

But they provoked me, and would not hearken to me: they did not every man cast away the abominations of his eyes, neither did they forsake the idols of Egypt: and I said I would pour out my indignation upon them, and accomplish my wrath against them in the midst of the land of Egypt.

But I did otherwise for my name's sake, that it might not be violated before the nations, in the midst of whom they were, and among whom I made myself known to them, to bring them out of the land of Egypt.

Therefore I brought them out from the land of Egypt, and brought them into the desert.

And I gave them my statutes, and I shewed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall live in them.

Moreover I gave them also my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them: and that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.

But the house of Israel provoked me in the desert: they walked not in my statutes, and they cast away my judgments, which if a man do he shall live in them: and they grievously violated my sabbaths. I said therefore that I would pour out my indignation upon them in the desert, and would consume them.

But I spared them for the sake of my name, lest it should be profaned before the nations, from which I brought them out, in their sight.

So I lifted up my hand over them in the desert, not to bring them into the land which I had given them flowing with milk and honey, the best of all lands.