1   On the first day of the third month in the eleventh year this word came to me from the Lord: 2   Man, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and all his horde:

  What are you like in your greatness?


3   Look at Assyria: it was a cedar in Lebanon,
  whose fair branches overshadowed the forest,
towering high with its crown finding a way through the foliage.
4   Springs nourished it, underground waters gave it height,
their streams washed the soil all round it
and sent forth their rills to every tree in the country.
5   So it grew taller than every other tree.
Its boughs were many, its branches spread far;
  for water was abundant in the channels.
6   In its boughs all the birds of the air had their nests,
under its branches all wild creatures bore their young,
and in its shadow all great nations made their home.
   7   A splendid great tree it was, with its long spreading boughs,
for its roots were beside abundant waters.
   8   No cedar in God's garden overshadowed it,
  no fir could compare with its boughs,
  and no plane-tree had such branches;

Prophecies against foreign nations
    not a tree in God's garden
  could rival its beauty.
   9   I, the Lord, gave it beauty
    with its mass of spreading boughs,
  the envy of all the trees in Eden,
    the garden of God.

10   Therefore these are the words of the Lord God: Because it ^note grew so high and pushed its crown up through the foliage, and its pride mounted as it grew, 11   therefore I handed it over to a prince of the nations to deal with it; I made an example of it as its wickedness deserved. 12   Strangers from the most ruthless of nations hewed it down and flung it away. Its sweeping boughs fell on the mountains and in all the valleys, and its branches lay broken beside all the streams in the land. All nations of the earth came out from under its shade and left it. 13   All the birds of the air settled on its fallen trunk; the wild creatures all stood by its branches. 14   Never again, therefore, shall the well-watered trees grow so high or push their crowns up through the foliage. Nor shall the strongest of them, well watered though they be, stand erect in their full height; for all have been given over to death, to the world below, to share the common doom and go down to the abyss.

15   These are the words of the Lord God: When he went down to Sheol, I closed the deep over him as a gate, I dammed its rivers, the great waters were held back. I put Lebanon in mourning for him, and all the trees of the country-side wilted. 16   I made nations shake with the crash of his fall, when I brought him down to Sheol with those who go down to the abyss. From this all the trees of Eden, all the choicest and best of Lebanon, all the well-watered trees, drew comfort in the world below. 17   They too like him had gone down to Sheol, to those slain with the sword; and those who had lived in his shadow were scattered among the nations. 18   Which among the trees of Eden was like you in glory and greatness? Yet you will be brought down with the trees of Eden to the world below; you will lie with those who have been slain by the sword, in the company of the strengthless dead. This stands for Pharaoh and all his horde. This is the very word of the Lord God.

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