Ezekiel 31

‘Whom are you like in your greatness?

³Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon

with beautiful branches,

and with a forest-like shade,

of high stature;

and its top was amongst the thick boughs.

⁴The waters nourished it.

The deep made it to grow.

Its rivers ran all around its plantation.

It sent out its channels to all the trees of the field.

⁵Therefore its stature was exalted above all the trees of the field;

and its boughs were multiplied.

Its branches became long by reason of many waters,

when it spread them out.

⁶All the birds of the sky made their nests in its boughs.

Under its branches, all the animals of the field gave birth to their young.

All great nations lived under its shadow.

⁷Thus it was beautiful in its greatness,

in the length of its branches;

for its root was by many waters.

⁸The cedars in the garden of God could not hide it.

The cypress trees were not like its branches.

The pine trees were not like its branches;

nor was any tree in the garden of God like it in its beauty.

⁹I 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 said the Lord GOD: ‘Because he is exalted in stature, and he has set his top amongst the thick branches, and his heart is lifted up in his height, ¹¹I will deliver him into the hand of the mighty one of the nations. He will surely deal with him. I have driven him out for his wickedness. ¹²Foreigners, the tyrants of the nations, have cut him off and have left him. His branches have fallen on the mountains and in all the valleys, and his boughs are broken by all the watercourses of the land. All the peoples of the earth have gone down from his shadow and have left him. ¹³All the birds of the sky will dwell on his ruin, and all the animals of the field will be on his branches, ¹⁴to the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves in their stature, and don’t set their top amongst the thick boughs. Their mighty ones don’t stand up on their height, even all who drink water; for they are all delivered to death, to the lower parts of the earth, amongst the children of men, with those who go down to the pit.’

¹⁵“The Lord GOD says: ‘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. ¹⁶I 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 that drink water, were comforted in the lower parts of the earth. ¹⁷They 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 thus like in glory and in greatness amongst the trees of Eden? Yet you will be brought down with the trees of Eden to the lower parts of the earth. You will 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 GOD.”