Ezequiel 31

A cedar in Lebanon

¹In the third month of the eleventh year, on its first day, the word of the LORD came to me: ²Son of man, say to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and to his hordes: \q Who can be compared with you in your greatness? ³Consider Assyria, a cedar in Lebanon, with beautiful branches and shade like a forest, towering high, \q its top among the clouds.^{a 4}The waters made it grow; the deep made it tall, \q sending its rivers all around the place where it was planted \q and its channels to all the trees of the field. ⁵So it grew taller \q than all the trees of the field. \q Its boughs grew many and its branches long because of the abundant water, as it spread its shoots. ⁶All the birds of the sky nested in its boughs; \q under its branches all the wild animals gave birth to their young, \q and all the great nations lived in its shade. ⁷It was beautiful in its greatness, with its long branches, \q for its roots went down to abundant waters. ⁸The cedars in the garden of God could not match it, \q the junipers could not equal its boughs, \q and the plane trees were nothing like its branches; \q no tree in God’s garden was its equal in beauty. ⁹I made it beautiful \q with its many branches, \q and all the trees of Eden, \q in the garden of God, envied it.

The great tree cut down

¹⁰Therefore the Lord GOD says this: Because it grew so tall, setting its top among the clouds, and its heart grew proud of its height, ¹¹I handed it over to the mightiest of the nations, who dealt with it as its wickedness deserved. I drove it out. ¹²Foreigners from the most ruthless of nations cut it down and left it lying. Its branches fell on the mountains and in every valley, and its boughs lay broken in all the ravines of the land. All the peoples of the earth came out from its shade and left it. ¹³All the birds of the sky settle on its fallen trunk, and all the wild animals live among its branches. ¹⁴This happened so that no other trees by the waters would grow proud of their height or lift their tops among the clouds, and no well-watered tree would rise to such height. For all of them are destined for death, for the world below, among mortals, with those who go down to the pit.

Down to Sheol

¹⁵The Lord GOD says this: On the day it went down to Sheol, I made the deep mourn for it and covered it over. I held back its rivers, and its great waters were stopped. I dressed Lebanon in gloom for it, and all the trees of the field wilted because of it. ¹⁶I made the nations shake at the sound of its fall, when I brought it down to Sheol with those who go down to the pit. Then in the world below all the trees of Eden took comfort, the choicest and best of Lebanon, every tree that drinks water. ¹⁷They too went down with it to Sheol, to those killed by the sword, along with those who were its strength, who had lived in its shade among the nations.^{b 18}Which of the trees of Eden was like you in glory and greatness? Yet you too will be brought down with the trees of Eden into the world below. You will lie among the uncircumcised, with those killed by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his hordes, declares the Lord GOD.