Ezekiel 31:1-14

In the eleventh year,  in the third month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his hordes, ‘Who are you like in your greatness? Think of Assyria, a cedar in Lebanon,  with beautiful branches and shady foliage and of lofty height. Its top was among the clouds.  The waters caused it to grow; the underground springs made it tall, directing their rivers all around the place where the tree was planted and sending their channels to all the trees of the field. Therefore the cedar became greater in height than all the trees of the field.  Its branches multiplied, and its boughs grew long as it spread them out because of the abundant water.  All the birds of the sky nested in its branches,  and all the animals of the field gave birth beneath its boughs; all the great nations lived in its shade. It was beautiful in its size, in the length of its limbs, for its roots extended to abundant water. The cedars in God’s garden could not eclipse it;  the pine trees couldn’t compare with its branches, nor could the plane trees match its boughs. No tree in the garden of God could compare with it in beauty. I made it beautiful with its many limbs, and all the trees of Eden, which were in God’s garden, envied it. “ ‘Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: Since it  towered high in stature and set its top among the clouds, and it  grew proud  on account of its height, I determined to hand it over to a ruler of nations;  he would surely deal with it. I banished it because of its wickedness. Foreigners, ruthless men from the nations,  cut it down and left it lying. Its limbs fell on the mountains and in every valley; its boughs lay broken in all the earth’s ravines. All the peoples of the earth left its shade and abandoned it. All the birds of the sky nested on its fallen trunk, and all the animals of the field were among its boughs. This happened so that no trees planted beside water would become great in height and set their tops among the clouds, and so that no other well-watered trees would reach them in height. For they have all been consigned to death, to the underworld, among the people  who descend to the Pit.