Looking forward to the time when the pride of Assyria should be brought low, Zephaniah prophesied of Nineveh: “Flocks shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations: both the cormorant and the bittern shall lodge in the upper lintels of it; their voice shall sing in the windows; desolation shall be in the thresholds: for He shall uncover the cedar work.” Zephaniah 2:14. (PK 365.1) MC VC

Great was the glory of the Assyrian realm; great was its downfall. The prophet Ezekiel, carrying farther the figure of a noble cedar tree, plainly foretold the fall of Assyria because of its pride and cruelty. He declared: (PK 365.2) MC VC

“Thus saith the Lord God; ... He hath shot up his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height; I have therefore delivered him into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen; he shall surely deal with him: I have driven him out for his wickedness. And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him: upon the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the rivers of the land; and all the people of the earth are gone down from his shadow, and have left him. Upon his ruin shall all the fowls of the heaven remain, and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches: to the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves for their height....” Ezekiel 31:10~14. (PK 365.3) MC VC

“Thus saith the Lord God; In the day when he went down to the grave I caused a mourning: ... and all the trees of the field fainted for him. I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall.” Ezekiel 31:10-16. (PK 365.4) MC VC