The Downfall of Pharaoh and Egypt Because of Their Wickedness (Ezekiel 31:10-14).
‘Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh, “Because you are exalted in height, and he has set his top among the interweaving boughs, and his heart is lifted up because of his height, I will even deliver him into the hand of the mighty one of the nations. He will 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. On the mountains and in all the valleys his branches have fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the watercourses of the land, and all the people of the earth have deserted his shadow and have left him.” '
The passage begins by addressing Pharaoh and his great people and then immediately turns into the third person to speak to all. What was to happen was because in their uplifting and plenty they had been over-proud, had exalted themselves above others and had behaved wickedly. Thus they were to be delivered into the hands of ‘the mighty one of the nations' and ‘the terrible of the nations'. This refers to Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon (compare Ezekiel 28:7; Ezekiel 30:11).
Note that it is Yahweh Who will deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, and it will be Yahweh Who has ‘driven him out' for his wickedness. He is acting as Righteous Judge and Supreme Overlord, (as He will later against Babylon), and Nebuchadnezzar is at present His servant and His means of exacting justice.
The picture is a vivid one. The branches of the great Cypress would be cut off, falling in the mountains and valleys, and into the different rivers and channels, and the Cypress will no longer be great and impressive. Egypt which had for millenniums been great and exalted would be so no more. It would be stunted, and no longer provide shelter for others. Those who do not use what they have for good will eventually lose it.