< Jezekiel 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 have you compared yourself in your 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 lived 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 says the Lord; Because you are grown great, and have set your 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 says 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. (Sheol )
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 of [plants] of Libanus, all that drink water. (Sheol )
17 For they went down to hell with him amongst the slain with the sword; and his seed, [even] they that lived under his shadow, perished in the midst of their life. (Sheol )
18 To whom are you compared? descend, and be you debased with the trees of paradise to the depth of the earth: you shall 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, says the Lord God.
