3Behold, Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon, with beautiful branches, dense shade, and towering height, its top reaching among the thick clouds.
4The waters nourished it; the deep made it grow tall, sending its rivers around its planting place, and they watered all the trees of the field.
5So it grew taller than all the trees of the field; its branches multiplied, and its boughs grew long because of the abundance of water as it sent them out.
6All the birds of the sky nested in its branches, every beast of the field gave birth under its boughs, and all the great nations lived in its shade.
7It was majestic in its size, with long branches, because its roots reached abundant waters.
8The cedars in God's garden could not rival it; the cypresses could not compare to its branches, and the plane trees were not like its boughs. No tree in the garden of God was equal to it in beauty.
9I made it beautiful with its many branches, and all the trees of Eden, which were in the garden of God, envied it.
10Therefore, this is what the Lord GOD says: Because it grew tall, lifting its top among the clouds, and its heart became arrogant because of its height,
11I handed it over to a mighty ruler among the nations; he dealt with it according to its wickedness. I drove it out.
12Foreigners, the most ruthless of nations, cut it down and abandoned it. Its branches fell on the mountains and in all the valleys; its boughs were broken in all the ravines of the earth, and all the nations of the earth left its shade.
13All the birds of the sky rested on its fallen trunk, and all the wild animals were among its branches.
14This happened so that no trees beside the abundant waters may grow tall enough to reach the clouds, nor lift their tops among the thick branches, and no trees that drink water will stand before them in their height. For they have all been consigned to death, to the lower earth, among the sons of men, with those who go down to the pit.
15This is what the Lord GOD says: On the day it went down to Sheol, I caused mourning; I covered the deep because of it, restrained its rivers, and held back the abundant waters. I clothed Lebanon in gloom because of it, and all the trees of the field withered away over it.