“Do you hunt prey for the lioness, and satisfy the appetite of the lions,

The mighty lion perishes for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.

You are a lion’s cub, Judah, from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He crouches and lies down like a lion; like a lioness – who will rouse him?

They crouch and lie down like a lion, and as a lioness, who can stir him? Blessed is the one who blesses you, and cursed is the one who curses you!’”

Of Gad he said: Blessed be the one who enlarges Gad. Like a lioness he will dwell; he will tear at an arm – indeed, a scalp.

Their roar is like a lion’s; they roar like young lions. They growl and seize their prey; they drag it away and no one can come to the rescue.

and say: “‘What a lioness was your mother among the lions! She lay among young lions; she reared her cubs.

I will attack them like a bear robbed of her cubs – I will rip open their chests. I will devour them there like a lion – like a wild animal would tear them apart.

The lion tore apart as much prey as his cubs needed and strangled prey to provide food for his lionesses; he filled his lairs with prey and his dens with torn flesh.

Indeed, the people will rise up like a lioness, and like a lion raises himself up; they will not lie down until they eat their prey, and drink the blood of the slain.”

I am surrounded by lions; I lie down among those who want to devour me; men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are a sharp sword.

For a nation has invaded our land. There are so many of them they are too numerous to count. Their teeth are like those of a lion; they tear apart their prey like a lioness.

Where now is the den of the lions, the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion, lioness, and lion cub once prowled and no one disturbed them?

This is a message about the animals in the Negev: Through a land of distress and danger, inhabited by lionesses and roaring lions, by snakes and darting adders, they transport their wealth on the backs of donkeys, their riches on the humps of camels, to a nation that cannot help them.