Ezekiel

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The Message

Ezekiel 19 The Message (MSG)

A Story of Two Lions

1-4. Sing the blues over the princes of Israel. Say:What a lioness was your motheramong lions!She crouched in a pride of young lions.Her cubs grew large.She reared one of her cubs to maturity,a robust young lion.He learned to hunt.He ate men.Nations sounded the alarm.He was caught in a trap.They took him with hooksand dragged him to Egypt.

5-9. When the lioness saw she was luckless,that her hope for that cub was gone,She took her other cuband made him a strong young lion.He prowled with the lions,a robust young lion.He learned to hunt.He ate men.He rampaged through their defenses,left their cities in ruins.The country and everyone in itwas terrorized by the roars of the lion.The nations got together to hunt him.Everyone joined the hunt.They set out their trapsand caught him.They put a wooden collar on himand took him to the king of Babylon.No more would that voice be hearddisturbing the peace in the mountains of Israel!

10-14. 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 grapesbecause of the ample water.It grew sturdy branchesfit to be carved into a royal scepter.It grew high, reaching into the clouds.Its branches filled the horizon,and everyone could see it.Then it was ripped up in a rageand thrown to the ground.The hot east wind shriveled it upand stripped its fruit.The sturdy branches dried out,fit for nothing but kindling.Now it’s a stick stuck out in the desert,a bare stick in a desert of death,Good for nothing but making fires,campfires in the desert.Not a hint now of those sturdy branchesfit for use as a royal scepter!(This is a sad song, a text for singing the blues.)