learned to catch the prey, and to devour men.

One of her whelps... Viz., Joachaz, alias Sellum.

19:4. And the nations heard of him, and took him, but not without
receiving wounds: and they brought him in chains into the land of Egypt.

19:5. But she seeing herself weakened, and that her hope was lost, took
one of her young lions, and set him up for a lion.

One of her young lions... Joakim.

19:6. And he went up and down among the lions, and became a lion: and he
learned to catch the prey, and to devour men.

19:7. 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.

19:8. 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.

19:9. 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.

19:10. Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood planted by the water: her
fruit and her branches have grown out of many waters.

19:11. 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.

19:12. 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.

19:13. And now she is transplanted into the desert, in a land not
passable, and dry.

19:14. 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.

Ezechiel Chapter 20

God refuses to answer the ancients of Israel inquiring by the prophet:
but by him setteth his benefits before their eyes, and their heinous
sins: threatening yet greater punishments: but still mixed with mercy.

20:1. 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.

20:2. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

20:3. 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.

20:4