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America,
Whom are you like in your greatness?
Indeed Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon,
With fine branches that shaded the forest,
And of high stature;
And its top was among the thick boughs.
The waters made it grow;
Underground waters gave it height,
With their rivers running around the place where it was planted,
And sent out rivulets to all the trees of the field.
‘Therefore its height was exalted above all the trees of the field;
Its boughs were multiplied,
And its branches became long because of the abundance of water,
As it sent them out.
All the birds of the heavens made their nests in its boughs;
Under its branches all the beasts of the field brought forth their young;
And in its shadow all great nations made their home.
Thus it was beautiful in greatness and in the length of its branches,
Because its roots reached to abundant waters.
The cedars in the garden of God could not hide it;
The fir trees were not like its boughs,
And the chestnut trees were not like its branches;
No tree in the garden of God was like it in beauty.
God made it beautiful with a multitude of branches,
So that all the trees of Eden envied it,
That were in the garden of God.
But America has become proud and arrogant,” the Lord God says.
“Therefore because she has set herself
so high above the others, reaching to the clouds,
I will deliver her into the hands of a mighty nation,
to destroy her as her wickedness deserves.
I, myself, will cut her down.
A foreign army —the terror of the nations— will invade her land
and cut her down and leave her fallen on the ground.
Her branches will be scattered across the mountains and valleys and rivers of the land.
All those who live beneath her shade will go away and leave her lying there.
The birds will pluck off her twigs,
and the wild animals will lie among her branches;
let no other nation exult with pride for its own prosperity,
though it be higher than the clouds,
for all are doomed, and they will land in the eternal grave
along with all the proud men of the world.”
(from Ezekiel 31)
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