Fall of the Haughty Cedar
31 On the first day of the third month of the eleventh year, the word of Adonai came to me saying: 2 “Son of man, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his multitude:
‘Who is like you in your greatness?
3 Behold, Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon,
with beautiful branches shadowing the forest,
of lofty height.
Its top was in leafy branches.
4 Water nourished it,
the deep made it tall,
with its rivers going around its planting
as it sent out its water-courses
to all the trees of the field.
5 Therefore its height was loftier
than all the trees of the field.
Its branches multiplied
and its boughs became long
because of the abundant water in its shoots.
6 All the birds of the sky nested in its branches.
All the beasts of the field gave birth to their young under its branches.
All great nations lived under its shade.
7 It was beautiful in its greatness,
in the length of its branches,
for its root was in abundant water.
8 The cedars in the garden of God
could not compare with it.
No cypress trees could rival its boughs.
No plane-trees could match its branches.
No tree in the garden of God
could compare to its beauty.
9 I made it beautiful with its many limbs.
All the trees of Eden in God’s garden envied it.’”
10 Therefore thus says Adonai Elohim:
“Because you were exalted in height
—its top set up among leafy branches,
its heart haughty in its height—
11 I gave it into the hand of a ruler of nations,
who surely dealt with it.
I drove it out
as befits its wickedness.
12 Ruthless barbarians from the nations cut it down. They cast it down on the mountains and in all the valleys its branches fell. Its branches have laid broken in all the streambeds of the land. All the people of the earth have come out from its shade and abandoned it.
13 All the birds of the sky lived on its fallen trunk and all the beasts of the field upon its fallen branches.
14 So none of all the trees by the water should exalt themselves in their height or set their top among the leafy boughs. None of their well-watered mighty ones should attain their height.
For they have all been given to death, to the lowest regions under the earth, among the children of men who go down to the Pit.”
15 Thus says Adonai Elohim:
“In the day when he went down to Sheol
I caused the deep to mourn
and cover itself for him.
I restrained his rivers,
so the great waters were stopped.
I made Lebanon mourn for him.
All the trees of the field wilt away for it.
16 I made the nations tremble at the sound of its fall,
when I cast him down to Sheol with those who descend into the Pit.
All the well-watered trees of Eden,
the choice and best of Lebanon,
were comforted in the lowest parts of the earth.
17 They also went down with him to Sheol,
to those slain by the sword,
those who were his mighty arm,
who lived in his shadow among the nations.
18 ‘Who is like you in glory and greatness among the trees of Eden? You will be brought down with the trees of Eden to the lowest parts of the earth. You will lie among the uncircumcised, with those slain by the sword.’
This is Pharaoh and all his multitude.”
It is a declaration of Adonai.