Ezekiel 31

¹In the eleventh year , in the third month, on the first day of the month , the word of the Lord came to me:

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

³Behold , Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon , with beautiful branches and forest shade , and of towering height , its top among the clouds .

⁴The waters nourished it; the deep made it grow tall , making its rivers flow around the place of its planting , sending forth its streams to all the trees of the field .

⁵So it towered high above all the trees of the field ; its boughs grew large and its branches long from abundant water in its shoots .

⁶All the birds of the heavens made their nests in its boughs ; under its branches all the beasts of the field gave birth to their young , and under its shadow lived all great nations .

⁷It was beautiful in its greatness , in the length of its branches ; for its roots went down to abundant waters .

⁸The cedars in the garden of God could not rival it, nor the fir trees equal its boughs ; neither were the plane trees like its branches ; no tree in the garden of God was its equal in beauty .

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

¹⁰Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because it towered high and set its top among the clouds , and its heart was proud of its height ,

¹¹I will give it into the hand of a mighty one of the nations . He shall surely deal with it as its wickedness deserves . I have cast it out .

¹²Foreigners , the most ruthless of nations , have cut it down and left it. On the mountains and in all the valleys its branches have fallen , and its boughs have been broken in all the ravines of the land , and all the peoples of the earth have gone away from its shadow and left it.

¹³On its fallen trunk dwell all the birds of the heavens , and on its branches are all the beasts of the field .

¹⁴All this is in order that no trees by the waters may grow to towering height or set their tops among the clouds , and that no trees that drink water may reach up to them in height . For they are all given over to death , to the world below , among the children of man , with those who go down to the pit .

¹⁵Thus says the Lord God: On the day the cedar went down to Sheol I caused mourning ; I closed the deep over it, and restrained its rivers , and many waters were stopped . I clothed Lebanon in gloom for it, and all the trees of the field fainted because of it.

¹⁶I made the nations quake at the sound of its fall , when I cast it down to Sheol with those who go down to the pit . And all the trees of Eden , the choice and best of Lebanon , all that drink water , were comforted in the world below .

¹⁷They also went down to Sheol with it, to those who are slain by the sword ; yes, those who were its arm , who lived under its shadow among the nations .

¹⁸Whom are you thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden ? You shall be brought down with the trees of Eden to the world below . You shall lie among the uncircumcised , with those who are slain by the sword . This is Pharaoh and all his multitude , declares the Lord God.