Ezekiel 31:3–18

³Look at Assyria, a cedar in Lebanon,

with beautiful branches that shaded the forest.

It towered on high;

its top was among the clouds.

⁴The waters made it grow;

the deep springs made it tall,

directing their streams all around its base

and sending their channels to all the trees of the field.

⁵Therefore it towered higher

than all the trees of the field.

Its branches multiplied,

and its boughs grew long

as it spread them out

because of the abundant waters.

⁶All the birds of the air

nested in its branches,

and all the beasts of the field

gave birth beneath its boughs;

all the great nations

lived in its shade.

⁷It was beautiful in its greatness,

in the length of its limbs,

for its roots extended

to abundant waters.

⁸The cedars in the garden of God

could not rival it;

the cypresses^a could not compare with its branches,

nor the plane trees^b match its boughs.

No tree in the garden of God

could compare with its beauty.

⁹I made it beautiful with its many branches,

the envy of all the trees of Eden,

which were in the garden of God.’

¹⁰Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Since it became great^c in height and set its top among the clouds,^d and it grew proud on account of its height, ¹¹I delivered it into the hand of the ruler of the nations, for him to deal with it according to its wickedness. I have banished it.

¹²Foreigners, the most ruthless of the nations, cut it down and left it. Its branches have fallen on the mountains and in every valley; its boughs lay broken in all the earth’s ravines. And all the peoples of the earth left its shade and abandoned it.

¹³All the birds of the air nested on its fallen trunk, and all the beasts of the field lived among its boughs. ¹⁴This happened so that no other trees by the waters would become great in height and set their tops among the clouds, and no other well-watered trees would reach them in height. For they have all been consigned to death, to the depths of the earth, among the mortals who descend to the Pit.’

¹⁵This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘On the day it was brought down to Sheol, I caused mourning. I covered the deep because of it; I held back its rivers; its abundant waters were restrained. I made Lebanon mourn for it, and all the trees of the field fainted because of it. ¹⁶I made the nations quake at the sound of its downfall, when I cast it down to Sheol with those who descend to the Pit.

Then all the trees of Eden, the choicest and best of Lebanon, all the well-watered trees, were consoled in the earth below. ¹⁷They too descended with it to Sheol, to those slain by the sword. As its allies they had lived in its shade among the nations.

¹⁸Who then is like you in glory and greatness among the trees of Eden? You also will be brought down to the depths of the earth to be with the trees of Eden. You will lie among the uncircumcised, with those slain by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, declares the Lord GOD.’”