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

Then he had Zedekiah’s eyes put out and had him bound in chains to be led off to Babylon.

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

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?

Azariah, the head priest from the family of Zadok, said to him, “Since the contributions began arriving in the Lord’s temple, we have had plenty to eat and have a large quantity left over. For the Lord has blessed his people, and this large amount remains.”

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.