Dual Panel1On the first day of the third month in the eleventh year this word of the LORD came to me:
2“O man, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his hordes: In your greatness, what are you like?
3Look at Assyria: it was a cedar in Lebanon, towering high with its crown pushing through the foliage and its fair branches overshadowing the forest.
4Springs nourished it, the underground waters made it lofty, their streams washed the soil all round it and sent channels of water to every tree in the country.
5So it grew taller than every other tree. Its boughs were many, its branches far-spreading; for water was abundant in the channels.
6In its boughs all the birds of the air had their nests, under its branches all wild creatures bore their young, and in its shade all great nations made their home.
7A splendid, great tree it was, with its far-spreading boughs, for its roots were beside abundant waters.
8No cedar in God's garden eclipsed it, no juniper could compare with its boughs, and no plane tree had such branches; not a tree in God's garden could rival its beauty.
9I, the LORD, made it beautiful with its mass of spreading boughs, the envy of every tree in Eden, the garden of God.
10“The Lord GOD says: Because it grew so high, raising its crown through the foliage, and its pride mounted as it grew,
11I handed it over to a prince of the nations to deal with it; I made an example of it as its wickedness deserved.
12Foreigners, the most ruthless of nations, cut it down and left it lying. Its sweeping boughs fell on the mountains and in all the valleys, and its branches lay broken beside every water-channel on earth. All the peoples of the earth came out from under its shade and left it.
13On its fallen trunk the birds all settled, the wild creatures all sought shelter among its branches.
14Never again will the well-watered trees grow so high or push their crowns up through the foliage. Nor will the strongest of them, though well-watered, attain their full height; for all have been given over to death, to the world below, to share the fate of mortals and go down to the abyss.
15“The Lord GOD says: When he went down to Sheol, I dried up the deep, I dammed its rivers, the great waters were held back. I brought mourning on Lebanon for him, and all the trees of the countryside wilted.
16I made nations shake at the sound of his downfall, when I brought him down to Sheol with those who go down to the abyss. From this all the trees of Eden, the choicest and best of Lebanon, all the well-watered trees, drew comfort in the world below.
17They too like him had gone down to Sheol, to those slain by the sword, and those among the nations who had lived in his shade.
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 uncircumcised dead. So it will be with Pharaoh and all his hordes. This is the word of the Lord GOD.”