Ezekiel 31

¹ In the eleventh year, in the third month, in the first day of the month, Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,

² “Son of man, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his multitude: ‘Whom are you like in your greatness?

³ Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with beautiful branches, and with a forest-like shade, of high stature; and its top was among the thick boughs.

⁴ The waters nourished it. The deep made it grow. Its rivers ran all around its plantation. It sent out its channels to all the trees of the field.

⁵ Therefore its height was exalted above all the trees of the field. Its boughs were multiplied, and its branches became long by reason of many waters, when it spread out.

⁶ All the birds of the sky made their nests in its boughs. Under its branches all the animals of the field gave birth. In its shade all great nations lived.

⁷ Thus it was beautiful in its greatness, in the length of its branches; for its root was by many waters.

⁸ The cedars in the garden of God could not hide it. The cypress trees were not like its boughs. The pine trees were not like its branches; nor was any tree in the garden of God like it in its beauty.

⁹ I made it beautiful by the multitude of its branches, so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied it.

¹⁰ “Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: ‘Because you are exalted in stature, and he has set his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height;

¹¹ I will deliver him into the hand of the mighty one of the nations. He shall surely deal with him. I have driven him out for his wickedness.

¹² Strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him. On the mountains and in all the valleys his branches have fallen. His boughs are broken by all the waters of the land. All the peoples of the earth have gone down from his shadow, and have left him.

¹³ On his ruin all the birds of the sky shall dwell. All the animals of the field shall be on his branches;

¹⁴ to the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves in their stature, and don’t set their top among the thick boughs. Neither shall their mighty ones stand up on themselves in their height, all who drink water; for they are all delivered to death, to the lower parts of the earth, among the children of men, with those who go down to the pit.’

¹⁵ “Thus says the Lord Yahweh: ‘In the day when he went down to Sheol I caused a mourning. I covered the deep for him, and I restrained its rivers. The great waters were stopped. I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him.

¹⁶ I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to Sheol with those who descend into the pit. All the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all who drink water, were comforted in the lower parts of the earth.

¹⁷ They also went down into Sheol with him to those who are slain by the sword; yes, those who were his arm, who lived under his shadow in the middle of the nations.

¹⁸ ‘To whom are you like thus in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? Yet you shall be brought down with the trees of Eden to the lower parts of the earth. You shall lie in the middle of the uncircumcised, with those who are slain by the sword.’ This is Pharaoh and all his multitude,” says the Lord Yahweh.