1: Sing the blues over the princes of Israel.
2: Say: What a lioness was your mother among lions! She crouched in a pride of young lions. Her cubs grew large.
3: She reared one of her cubs to maturity, a robust young lion. He learned to hunt. He ate men.
4: Nations sounded the alarm. He was caught in a trap. They took him with hooks and dragged him to Egypt.
5: When the lioness saw she was luckless, that her hope for that cub was gone, She took her other cub and made him a strong young lion.
6: He prowled with the lions, a robust young lion. He learned to hunt. He ate men.
7: He rampaged through their defenses, left their cities in ruins. The country and everyone in it was terrorized by the roars of the lion.
8: The nations got together to hunt him. Everyone joined the hunt. They set out their traps and caught him.
9: They put a wooden collar on him and took him to the king of Babylon. No more would that voice be heard disturbing the peace in the mountains of Israel!
10: Here's another way to put it: Your mother was like a vine in a vineyard, transplanted alongside streams of water, Luxurious in branches and grapes because of the ample water.
11: It grew sturdy branches fit to be carved into a royal scepter. It grew high, reaching into the clouds. Its branches filled the horizon, and everyone could see it.
12: Then it was ripped up in a rage and thrown to the ground. The hot east wind shriveled it up and stripped its fruit. The sturdy branches dried out, fit for nothing but kindling.
13: Now it's a stick stuck out in the desert, a bare stick in a desert of death,
14: Good for nothing but making fires, campfires in the desert. Not a hint now of those sturdy branches fit for use as a royal scepter! (This is a sad song, a text for singing the blues.)