Ezekiel 31
1 And it came to pass in the eleventh
year, in the third month, on the first day of the
month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
2 Son of man, say to Pharao king of
Egypt, and to his multitude;
To whom hast thou compared thyself in thy haughtiness?
3 Behold, the Assyrian was a cypress
in Libanus, and was fair in shoots, and high in stature: his top reached to
the midst of the clouds. 4 The water
nourished him, the depth made him grow tall; she led her rivers round about
his plants, and she sent forth her streams to all the trees of the field.
5 Therefore was his stature exalted
above all the trees of the field, and his branches spread far by the help of
much water. 6 All the birds of the sky
made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches all the wild beasts of
the field bred; the whole multitude of nations dwelt under his shadow.
7 And he was fair in his height by
reason of the multitude of his branches: for his roots were amidst much water.
8 And such cypresses
as this were in the paradise of God; and there were
no pines like his shoots, and there were no firs like his branches: no tree in
the paradise of God was like him in his beauty,
9 because of the multitude of his
branches: and the trees of God's paradise of delight envied him.
10 Therefore thus saith the Lord;
Because thou art grown great, and hast set thy top in the midst of the clouds,
and I saw when he was exalted;
11 therefore I delivered him into the
hands of the prince of the nations, and he wrought his destruction.
12 And ravaging strangers from the
nations have destroyed him, and have cast him down upon the mountains: his
branches fell in all the valleys, and his boughs were broken in every field of
the land; and all the people of the nations are gone down from their shelter,
and have laid him low.
13 All the birds of the sky have
settled on his fallen trunk, and all the wild beasts of the field came upon
his boughs: 14 in order that none of
the trees by the water should exalt themselves by reason of their size:
whereas they set their top in the midst of the clouds, yet they continued not
in their high state in their place, all that drank water, all were consigned
to death, to the depth of the earth, in the midst of the children of men, with
them that go down to the pit.
15 Thus saith the Lord God; In the
day wherein he went down to Hades, the deep mourned for him: and I stayed her
floods, and restrained her abundance of water: and Libanus saddened for him,
all the trees of the field fainted for him.
16 At the sound of his fall the
nations quaked, when I brought him down to Hades with them that go down to the
pit: and all the trees of Delight comforted him in the heart, and the choice
plants of Libanus, all that drink water.
17 For they went down to hell with
him among the slain with the sword; and his seed,
even they that dwelt under his shadow, perished in
the midst of their life.
18 To whom art thou compared?
descend, and be thou debased with the trees of paradise to the depth of the
earth: thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that are
slain by the sword. Thus shall Pharao be, and the multitude of his host, saith
the Lord God.