Ezekiel
Chapter 31
1 In the eleventh year, on the first day of the third month, God gave me a message, saying.
2 Human, talk to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and his people; who are you similar to in your greatness?
3 Look, the Assyrian was like a tall cedar tree in Lebanon with beautiful branches, and a large, shadowy covering; he was very tall, and his top reached into the dense branches.
4 Water made him strong, the depths lifted him up with rivers flowing around his roots, sending streams to all the trees in the area.
5 So he grew taller than all the other trees, his branches spread out, and they got longer because there was plenty of water.
6 Every bird in the sky nested in his branches, all the field animals gave birth under his branches, and all great peoples lived in his shade.
7 He was beautiful in his size, with long branches, because his roots were near much water.
8 God’s garden cedars couldn’t hide him: his branches were unlike the fir trees, and his boughs unlike the chestnut trees; no tree in God’s garden matched his beauty.
9 I have made him beautiful with many branches, so that all the trees of Eden in God’s garden were jealous of him.
10 So God says: Because you became very tall and your top grew among the thick branches, and your heart became proud because of your height;
11 So I handed him over to a strong nation’s leader; he will punish him. I expelled him because of his evil ways.
12 Foreigners, the fierce ones from different countries, cut him down and abandoned him. On the mountains and in all the valleys his branches lie fallen, and his limbs are broken by all the rivers of the land. All the earth’s people left his shade and left him alone.
13 All the birds of the sky will stay on his ruins, and all the animals of the field will be on his branches.
14 So that no trees by the water become proud of their height, or grow their tops high among dense branches, and no watered trees stand tall in their height; they are all doomed to die, to go down to the earth’s depths, among people, with those who sink to the grave.
15 God says, “On the day he died, I made people mourn. I hid the ocean for him, stopped its floods, and the big waters stopped. I made Lebanon sad for him, and all the trees in the field felt weak for him.”
16 I caused countries to tremble when they heard he had fallen. When I threw him down to the grave with those going into the deep pit, all the good trees of Eden and the finest ones from Lebanon, all that need water, felt better deep in the ground.
17 They also went down to the grave with him, to those killed by the sword; and those who supported him, who lived in his protection among the nations.
18 Who are you like in beauty and size among the Eden trees? But you will be cut down and lie below the earth with the Eden trees and the dead who were killed by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his people, says God.