Ezekiel 31:1-9

International Standard Version

‘Who do you think you are?
    What makes you so great?
³ Think about Assyria,^[b]
    that cedar of Lebanon,
beautiful with its branches,
    like a shady forest,
with an awesome height,
    its summit touches the clouds.
⁴ Abundant water made it great,
    Subterranean rivers made it grow.
Rivers surrounded the area where it had been planted,
    and water channels nourished all the trees in the fields.
⁵ That’s why it grew taller than any of the trees in the fields.
    Its boughs flourished.
Its branches grew luxurious
    because all the water made it spread out well.
⁶ The birds in the sky made nests in its boughs;
    all the beasts of the field gave birth under its branches.
        All the great nations rested in its shade.

⁷ ‘Beautiful because it was so great,
    with its long branches,
        it was rooted in many bodies of water.^[c]
8 The cedars in God’s garden could not compare to it;
    Fir trees could not match its boughs.
The plane tree^[d] never grew branches like it,
    and no tree in God’s garden compares to its beauty.
⁹ I made it beautiful,
    including all of its branches;
all the trees in God’s garden of Eden envied it!’”