Berean Standard Bible

Ezekiel 31:3-14

3Look at Assyria, a cedar in Lebanon, with beautiful branches that shaded the forest. It towered on high; its top was among the clouds.4The waters made it grow; the deep springs made it tall, directing their streams all around its base and sending their channels to all the trees of the field.

5Therefore it towered higherthan all the trees of the field.Its branches multiplied,and its boughs grew longas it spread them outbecause of the abundant waters.6All the birds of the airnested in its branches,and all the beasts of the fieldgave birth beneath its boughs;all the great nationslived in its shade.

7It was beautiful in its greatness,in the length of its limbs,for its roots extendedto abundant waters.8The cedars in the garden of Godcould not rival it;the cypresses1 could not compare with its branches,nor the plane trees2 match its boughs.No tree in the garden of Godcould compare with its beauty.9I made it beautiful with its many branches,the envy of all the trees of Eden,which were in the garden of God.’

10Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Since it became great3 in height and set its top among the clouds,4 and it grew proud on account of its height, 11I delivered it into the hand of the ruler of the nations, for him to deal with it according to its wickedness. I have banished it.

12Foreigners, the most ruthless of the nations, cut it down and left it. Its branches have fallen on the mountains and in every valley; its boughs lay broken in all the earth’s ravines. And all the peoples of the earth left its shade and abandoned it.

13All the birds of the air nested on its fallen trunk, and all the beasts of the field lived among its boughs. 14This happened so that no other trees by the waters would become great in height and set their tops among the clouds, and no other well-watered trees would reach them in height. For they have all been consigned to death, to the depths of the earth, among the mortals who descend to the Pit.’

Read all of Ezekiel 31

Notes

1. Ezekiel 31:8 Or pines or junipers or firs ↩
2. Ezekiel 31:8 Possibly chestnut or juniper ↩
3. Ezekiel 31:10 Hebrew you became great ↩
4. Ezekiel 31:10 Or through the thick boughs ↩

Notes

Commentaries on Ezekiel 31