Ezekiel 31

¹In the eleventh year, on the first day of the third month, the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

²“Son of man, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his multitude: ‘Who can be compared to your greatness?

³Look at Assyria, a cedar in Lebanon, with beautiful branches that shaded the forest. It towered on high; its top was among the clouds.

⁴The waters made it grow; the deep springs made it tall, directing their streams all around its base and sending their channels to all the trees of the field.

⁵Therefore it towered higher than all the trees of the field. Its branches multiplied, and its boughs grew long as it spread them out because of the abundant waters.

⁶All the birds of the air nested in its branches, and all the beasts of the field gave birth beneath its boughs; all the great nations lived in its shade.

⁷It was beautiful in its greatness, in the length of its limbs, for its roots extended to abundant waters.

⁸The cedars in the garden of God could not rival it; the cypresses could not compare with its branches, nor the plane trees match its boughs. No tree in the garden of God could compare with its beauty.

⁹I made it beautiful with its many branches, the envy of all the trees of Eden, which were in the garden of God.’

¹⁰Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Since it became great in height and set its top among the clouds, and it grew proud on account of its height,

¹¹I delivered it into the hand of the ruler of the nations, for him to deal with it according to its wickedness. I have banished it.