¹⁸ Your shepherds are asleep, O Assyrian king;
    your princes lie dead in the dust.
Your people are scattered across the mountains
    with no one to gather them together.

⁵ Our boldest enemies have been plundered.
    They lie before us in the sleep of death.
    No warrior could lift a hand against us.
⁶ At the blast of your breath, O God of Jacob,
    their horses and chariots lay still.

¹⁴ Everyone in Babylon will run about like a hunted gazelle,
    like sheep without a shepherd.
They will try to find their own people
    and flee to their own land.

⁵ The king shouts to his officers;
    they stumble in their haste,
    rushing to the walls to set up their defenses.
⁶ The river gates have been torn open!
    The palace is about to collapse!

³ You are like mighty Assyria,
    which was once like a cedar of Lebanon,
with beautiful branches that cast deep forest shade
    and with its top high among the clouds.
⁴ Deep springs watered it
    and helped it to grow tall and luxuriant.
The water flowed around it like a river,
    streaming to all the trees nearby.
⁵ This great tree towered high,
    higher than all the other trees around it.
It prospered and grew long thick branches
    because of all the water at its roots.
⁶ The birds nested in its branches,
    and in its shade all the wild animals gave birth.
All the great nations of the world
    lived in its shadow.
⁷ It was strong and beautiful,
    with wide-spreading branches,
for its roots went deep
    into abundant water.
⁸ No other cedar in the garden of God
    could rival it.
No cypress had branches to equal it;
    no plane tree had boughs to compare.
No tree in the garden of God
    came close to it in beauty.
⁹ Because I made this tree so beautiful,
    and gave it such magnificent foliage,
it was the envy of all the other trees of Eden,
    the garden of God.