Egypt will Fall Like Assyria
1 On the first day of the third month, in the eleventh year that king Jehoiachin was taken into captivity, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 2 “Son of man, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt and his multitude:
‘To whom can you be compared in your greatness?
3 Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon
with beautiful branches,
and with a forest-like shade,
of high stature,
and its top was among the thick branches.
4 The waters nourished it
and made it grow.
Its rivers ran all around its plantation,
and it sent out its channels to all the trees of the field.
5 Therefore its stature was exalted
above all the trees of the field,
and its boughs were multiplied.
Its branches became long and sprawling
because of the abundant water.
6 All the birds of the sky
made their nests in its branches,
and all the animals of the field
gave birth beneath its boughs.
All great nations lived under its shadow.
7 Thus it was beautiful in its greatness,
in the length of its branches,
for its roots were near an abundance of water.
8 The cedars in the Garden of God could not compare to it.
The cypress trees were not like its boughs.
The pine trees were not like its branches,
nor was any tree in the the Garden of God like it in beauty.
9 I made it beautiful in the multitude of its branches,
so that all the trees of Eden,
that were in the Garden of God envied it.’
10 Therefore this is what the Lord God says, ‘Because it is exalted in stature and has set his top among the thick boughs, and his heart became proud due to his height, 11 I will deliver him into the hand of the mighty one of the nations. He will surely deal with him. I have driven him out for his wickedness.
12 Strangers, the tyrants of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him. His branches have fallen on the mountains and in all the valleys and his boughs are broken by all the watercourses of the land. All the peoples of the earth have come out from its shadow and have left him.
13 All the birds of the sky will dwell on his ruin, and all the animals of the field will be on his branches, 14 so that no other trees by the waters will ever exalt themselves in their stature, nor set their top among the clouds. nor would the well watered ones rise to their height. For they are all delivered to death, to the lower parts of the earth, among the children of men, with those who go down to the pit.’
15 The Lord God says: ‘On the day when he went down to Sheol I caused mourning. I covered the deep for him, and I restrained its rivers. The great waters were stopped. I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him. 16 I made the nations shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to Sheol with those who descend into the pit. All the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, were comforted in the lower parts of the earth. 17 They too went down with him into Sheol, to those who are slain by the sword, yes, those who were allied with him, who lived under his shadow in the midst of the nations.
18 To whom are you thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? Yet you will be brought down with the trees of Eden to the lower parts of the earth. You will lie in the midst of the uncircumcised, with those who are slain by the sword.
This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, declares the Lord God.’ ”