Ezekiel 17

¹ The word of Yahweh was addressed to me as follows,

² ‘Son of man, ask them a riddle; propound a parable to the House of Israel.

³ Say, “The Lord Yahweh says this: A large eagle,[*a] with huge wings and a wide span, covered with speckled feathers, came to Lebanon. He took hold of the top of the cedar,

⁴ plucked off the top branch, carried it off to the land of merchants, and set it down in a city of shopkeepers.

⁵ Then he carried off a seedling vine, and planted it in fertile soil; by the side of a wide stream, as a border he set it.

⁶ The seedling grew, and turned into a vine, not tall but well spread out; its branches grew up towards the eagle, its roots grew down. It turned into a vine; it sent out stems and put out sprays.

⁷ There was another large eagle, with huge wings and thickly feathered. And now the vine twisted its roots toward him, stretched its branches towards him away from the bed where it was planted for him to water them.

⁸ It was in a fertile field, by the side of a wide stream, that the vine had been planted, to grow shoots, bear fruit and become a noble vine.”

⁹ Say, “The Lord Yahweh says this: Will this vine thrive? Will not the eagle break its roots, and snap up the fruit, so that all the new leaves will wither when they shoot? It will take no effort and no strong nation to pull it up by the roots.

¹⁰ It is planted there; will it thrive? Will it not shrivel when the east wind blows? It will wither on the soil where it was growing.”‘

¹¹ The word of Yahweh was addressed to me as follows:

¹² ‘Say to that set of rebels, “Do you not know what this means?” Say this, “Listen; the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem; he carried away the king and the princes, and took them to where he lives in Babylon.

¹³ He took a member of the royal family and made a treaty with him, forcing him to swear loyalty, after having already deported the chief men of the land,

¹⁴ so that the kingdom would remain modest and without ambition and so maintain his treaty faithfully.

¹⁵ But the prince rebelled and sent envoys to Egypt, asking for horses and a large number of troops. Is he going to thrive? Will a man who has done this go unpunished? Can he break a treaty and go unpunished?

¹⁶ As I live, I swear – it is the Lord Yahweh who speaks: In Babylon, in the country of the king who put him on the throne, whose oath he has ignored, whose treaty he has broken, there will he die.

¹⁷ Despite the pharaoh’s great army and hordes of men, he will not be able to save him by fighting, however many earthworks are raised, however many trenches dug to the loss of many lives.

¹⁸ He has ignored the oath and broken the treaty by which he was bound. He has done all this and shall not go unpunished.

¹⁹ “And so, the Lord Yahweh says this: As I live, I swear: my oath which he has ignored, my treaty which he has broken, I will make them both recoil on his own head.

²⁰ I mean to throw my net over him and catch him in my mesh; I mean to take him to Babylon and punish him there for breaking his oath to me.

²¹ The pick of his army will fall by the sword, and the survivors be scattered to all the winds. And so you will learn that I, Yahweh, have spoken.

²² The Lord Yahweh says this: From the top of the cedar, from the highest branch I will take a shoot and plant it myself on a very high mountain.

²³ I will plant it on the high mountain of Israel. It will sprout branches and bear fruit, and become a noble cedar. Every kind of bird will live beneath it, every winged creature rest in the shade of its branches.

²⁴ And every tree of the field will learn that I, Yahweh, am the one who stunts tall trees and makes the low ones grow, who withers green trees and makes the withered green. I, Yahweh, have spoken, and I will do it.”‘