New Living Translation NLT
The Message Bible MSG
1 On June 21, during the eleventh year of King Jehoiachin’s captivity, this message came to me from the LORD :
1
In the eleventh year, on the first day of the third month, God's Message came to me:
2 “Son of man, give this message to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and all his hordes: “To whom would you compare your greatness?
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"Son of man, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt, that pompous old goat: "'Who do you, astride the world, think you really are?
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.
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Look! Assyria was a Big Tree, huge as a Lebanon cedar, beautiful limbs offering cool shade, Skyscraper high, piercing 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.
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The waters gave it drink, the primordial deep lifted it high, Gushing out rivers around the place where it was planted, And then branching out in streams to all the trees in the forest.
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.
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It was immense, dwarfing all the trees in the forest - Thick boughs, long limbs, roots delving deep into earth's waters.
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.
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All the birds of the air nested in its boughs. All the wild animals gave birth under its branches. All the mighty nations lived in its shade.
7 It was strong and beautiful, with wide-spreading branches, for its roots went deep into abundant water.
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It was stunning in its majesty - the reach of its branches! the depth of its water-seeking roots!
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.
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Not a cedar in God's garden came close to it. No pine tree was anything like it. Mighty oaks looked like bushes growing alongside it. Not a tree in God's garden was in the same class of 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.
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I made it beautiful, a work of art in limbs and leaves, The envy of every tree in Eden, every last tree in God's garden.'"
10 “Therefore, this is what the Sovereign LORD says: Because Egypt became proud and arrogant, and because it set itself so high above the others, with its top reaching to the clouds,
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Therefore, God, the Master, says, "'Because it skyscrapered upwards, piercing the clouds, swaggering and proud of its stature,
11 I will hand it over to a mighty nation that will destroy it as its wickedness deserves. I have already discarded it.
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I turned it over to a world-famous leader to call its evil to account. I'd had enough.
12 A foreign army—the terror of the nations—has cut it down and left it fallen on the ground. Its branches are scattered across the mountains and valleys and ravines of the land. All those who lived in its shadow have gone away and left it lying there.
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Outsiders, unbelievably brutal, felled it across the mountain ranges. Its branches were strewn through all the valleys, its leafy boughs clogging all the streams and rivers. Because its shade was gone, everybody walked off. No longer a tree - just a log.
13 “The birds roost on its fallen trunk, and the wild animals lie among its branches.
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On that dead log birds perch. Wild animals burrow under it.
14 Let the tree of no other nation proudly exult in its own prosperity, though it be higher than the clouds and it be watered from the depths. For all are doomed to die, to go down to the depths of the earth. They will land in the pit along with everyone else on earth.
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"'That marks the end of the "big tree" nations. No more trees nourished from the great deep, no more cloud-piercing trees, no more earth- born trees taking over. They're all slated for death - back to earth, right along with men and women, for whom it's "dust to dust."
15 “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: When Assyria went down to the grave, I made the deep springs mourn. I stopped its rivers and dried up its abundant water. I clothed Lebanon in black and caused the trees of the field to wilt.
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"'The Message of God, the Master: On the day of the funeral of the Big Tree, I threw the great deep into mourning. I stopped the flow of its rivers, held back great seas, and wrapped the Lebanon mountains in black. All the trees of the forest fainted and fell.
16 I made the nations shake with fear at the sound of its fall, for I sent it down to the grave with all the others who descend to the pit. And all the other proud trees of Eden, the most beautiful and the best of Lebanon, the ones whose roots went deep into the water, took comfort to find it there with them in the depths of the earth.
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I made the whole world quake when it crashed, and threw it into the underworld to take its place with all else that gets buried. All the trees of Eden and the finest and best trees of Lebanon, well-watered, were relieved
17 Its allies, too, were all destroyed and had passed away. They had gone down to the grave—all those nations that had lived in its shade.
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- they had descended to the underworld with it - along with everyone who had lived in its shade and all who had been killed.
18 “O Egypt, to which of the trees of Eden will you compare your strength and glory? You, too, will be brought down to the depths with all these other nations. You will lie there among the outcasts who have died by the sword. This will be the fate of Pharaoh and all his hordes. I, the Sovereign LORD, have spoken!”
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"'Which of the trees of Eden came anywhere close to you in splendor and size? But you're slated to be cut down to take your place in the underworld with the trees of Eden, to be a dead log stacked with all the other dead logs, among the other uncircumcised who are dead and buried. "'This means Pharaoh, the pompous old goat. "'Decree of God, the Master.'"
Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by
Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.