Ezekiel 31

31 ¹ In the eleventh year, in the third month, on the first day of the month, the word of our Father came to me, saying:

² Son of man, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his multitude: Who are you like in your greatness? ³ Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon, with beautiful branches and forest shade, towering in height, its top among the clouds. ⁴ The waters made it great, the deep made it grow tall, its rivers flowing around the place where it was planted, sending its channels out to all the trees of the field. ⁵ So its height towered above all the trees of the field its boughs multiplied and its branches grew long because of the abundant waters as it spread out. ⁶ In its boughs all the birds of the sky nested, under its branches all the beasts of the field gave birth and in its shade lived all the great nations. ⁷ It was beautiful in its greatness, with its long branches for its roots reached down to abundant waters. ⁸ The cedars in the garden of our Father could not rival it the cypresses could not match its boughs and the plane trees were not like its branches. No tree in the garden of our Father was like it in beauty. ⁹ I made it beautiful with its many branches and all the trees of Eden that were in the garden of our Father envied it.

¹⁰ Therefore this is what the Sovereign Father says: Because it towered high and set its top among the clouds, and its heart grew proud of its height, ¹¹ I handed it over to the mighty one of the nations, who has surely dealt with it; I drove it out for its wickedness. ¹² Foreigners, the most ruthless of the nations, cut it down and abandoned it. On the mountains and in all the valleys its branches fell, its boughs lay broken in all the ravines of the land, and all the peoples of the earth withdrew from its shade and left it. ¹³ On its fallen trunk all the birds of the sky settle, and among its branches are all the beasts of the field, ¹⁴ so that no well-watered trees may tower high or set their tops among the clouds, and none that drink water may rise as high as they. For they are all given over to death, to the depths of the earth, among humanity, with those who go down to the pit.

¹⁵ This is what the Sovereign Father says: On the day it went down to Sheol I made the deep mourn and covered it over for the tree; I held back its rivers, and the abundant waters were restrained. I darkened Lebanon over it, and all the trees of the field withered away because of it. ¹ 1 v15 Lebanon and the deep springs are pictured in mourning for the fallen cedar — waters stopped, forests cloaked in darkness. ¹⁶ I 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. Then all the trees of Eden, the choicest and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, were comforted in the depths of the earth. ¹⁷ They too went down with it to Sheol, to those slain by the sword — those who had been its strength, who had lived in its shade among the nations.

¹⁸ Who among the trees of Eden are you like in glory and greatness? Yet you will be brought down with the trees of Eden to the depths of the earth; you will lie among the uncircumcised, with those slain by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, declares the Sovereign Father.