1In the eleventh year, in the third month, on the first of the month, the word of Yahweh came to me, saying:
2Son of man, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his multitude: Whom are you like in your greatness?
3Behold, Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon, beautiful in branch and a shadowing thicket, and lofty in height, and its top was among the clouds.
4Waters made it great, the deep raised it high, its rivers going around the place it was planted, and it sent out its channels to all the trees of the field.
5Therefore its height towered above all the trees of the field; its boughs multiplied and its branches grew long from the abundant waters as it spread out.
6In its boughs all the birds of the heavens nested, and under its branches all the beasts of the field gave birth, and in its shade all the many nations dwelt.
7It was beautiful in its greatness, in the length of its boughs, for its root reached to abundant waters.
8The cedars in the garden of God could not obscure it; the junipers were not equal to its boughs, and the plane trees were not like its branches; no tree in the garden of God was equal to it in its beauty.
9Beautiful I made it in the abundance of its boughs, and all the trees of Eden that were in the garden of God envied it.
10Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because you towered high in height, and it set its top among the clouds, and its heart was lifted up in its loftiness,
11I will hand it over to the mighty one of the nations; he will surely deal with it. For its wickedness I have driven it out.
12And strangers, the most ruthless of the nations, cut it down and abandoned it; on the mountains and in all the valleys its boughs fell, and its branches were broken in all the ravines of the land, and all the peoples of the earth went down from its shade and abandoned it.
13On its fallen trunk all the birds of the heavens settle, and by its branches are all the beasts of the field—
14so that none of the trees by the waters may tower high in their height, or set their top among the thick boughs, and none that drink water may reach up to them in their loftiness—for they are all given over to death, to the earth below, in the midst of the sons of men, with those who go down to the pit.
15Thus says the Lord Yahweh: On the day it went down to Sheol I brought mourning; I covered the deep over it and restrained its rivers, and the abundant waters were held back; I darkened Lebanon over it, and all the trees of the field languished over it.
16At the sound of its fall I made the nations quake, when I brought it down to Sheol with those who go down to the pit; and in the earth below all the trees of Eden were consoled—the choicest and best of Lebanon, all that drink water.
17They too went down with it to Sheol, to those slain by the sword—those who were its arm, who dwelt in its shade among the nations.
18Whom then are you like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? Yet you will be brought down with the trees of Eden to the earth below; you will lie among the uncircumcised, with those slain by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, declares the Lord Yahweh.
Open in the interactive reader →