Ezekiel 31

¹ In the eleventh year, on the first day of the third month, the word of Yahweh was addressed to me as follows,

² ‘Son of man, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to all his subjects: “To what shall I compare you in your greatness?

³ Surely, to a cedar of Lebanon with noble branches, thick-set needles and lofty trunk. Its top pierces the clouds.

⁴ The waters have made it grow, the deep has made it tall, pouring its rivers round the place where it is planted, sending its streams to all the other trees.

⁵ This is why its trunk grew taller than all the other trees; its branches increased in number, its boughs stretched wide, because the plentiful waters reached it.

⁶ All the birds of heaven used to nest in its branches; under its boughs all wild animals used to drop their young; in its shade every kind of people sat.

⁷ It was beautiful in its size, in the span of its boughs; its roots went deep into plentiful waters.

⁸ No cedar equalled it in the garden of God, no cypress had branches such as these; no plane tree could match its boughs, no tree in the garden of God could rival its beauty.

⁹ I had made it lovely with branching green. It was the envy of every tree in Eden, in the garden of God.

¹⁰ “Very well then, the Lord Yahweh says this: Since it has raised itself to its full height, has lifted its top to the clouds, and has grown arrogant in its height,

¹¹ I have handed it over to the prince of the nations[*a] to do with it as its wickedness deserves; I have destroyed it.

¹² Foreigners, the most barbarous of the nations, have cut it down and felled it. On the mountains, in all the valleys, lie its branches; its broken boughs fill every ravine throughout the country; everybody in the country has left its shade and deserted it.

¹³ On the wreckage perch all the birds of heaven; all the wild animals have made their dens under its branches.

¹⁴ In future let no tree rise in pride beside the waters, none push its top through the clouds, no well-watered tree stretch its whole height towards them. For all of them are doomed to death, to the regions underground, with the common run of mankind, with those who go down to the pit.

¹⁵ The Lord Yahweh says this: On the day it went down to Sheol, I closed the deep over it in sign of mourning. I stopped its rivers, the plentiful waters dried up; I made Lebanon dark for its sake, and all the trees of the fields wilted for its sake.

¹⁶ With the noise when it fell I made the nations quake, as I hurled it down to Sheol, with those who go down to the pit. In the regions underground all the trees of Eden took comfort, all the noble and lovely trees of Lebanon nourished by the waters.

¹⁷ And with it went down to Sheol, to the victims of the sword, all those nations who used to live in its shade.

¹⁸ Was anyone of all the trees of Eden your equal in glory and size, for you to be hurled with the trees of Eden down to the regions underground? With the uncircumcised there you lie; with the victims of the sword lie Pharaoh and all his subjects – it is the Lord Yahweh who speaks.”‘