God’s Faithless Bride

16 The word of the Lord came to me: ² Mortal, make known to Jerusalem her abominations, ³ and say, Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth were in the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite. ⁴ As for your birth, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in cloths. ⁵ No eye pitied you, to do any of these things for you out of compassion for you; but you were thrown out in the open field, for you were abhorred on the day you were born.

⁶ I passed by you, and saw you flailing about in your blood. As you lay in your blood, I said to you, ‘Live! ⁷ and grow up^[a] like a plant of the field.’ You grew up and became tall and arrived at full womanhood;^[b] your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare.

⁸ I passed by you again and looked on you; you were at the age for love. I spread the edge of my cloak over you, and covered your nakedness: I pledged myself to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord God, and you became mine. ⁹ Then I bathed you with water and washed off the blood from you, and anointed you with oil. ¹⁰ I clothed you with embroidered cloth and with sandals of fine leather; I bound you in fine linen and covered you with rich fabric.^{[c] 11} I adorned you with ornaments: I put bracelets on your arms, a chain on your neck, ¹² a ring on your nose, ear-rings in your ears, and a beautiful crown upon your head. ¹³ You were adorned with gold and silver, while your clothing was of fine linen, rich fabric,^[d] and embroidered cloth. You had choice flour and honey and oil for food. You grew exceedingly beautiful, fit to be a queen. ¹⁴ Your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of my splendour that I had bestowed on you, says the Lord God.

¹⁵ But you trusted in your beauty, and played the whore because of your fame, and lavished your whorings on any passer-by.^{[e] 16} You took some of your garments, and made for yourself colourful shrines, and on them played the whore; nothing like this has ever been or ever shall be.^{[f] 17} You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and my silver that I had given you, and made for yourself male images, and with them played the whore; ¹⁸ and you took your embroidered garments to cover them, and set my oil and my incense before them. ¹⁹ Also my bread that I gave you—I fed you with choice flour and oil and honey—you set it before them as a pleasing odour; and so it was, says the Lord God. ²⁰ You took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. As if your whorings were not enough! ²¹ You slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering to them. ²² And in all your abominations and your whorings you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, flailing about in your blood.

²³ After all your wickedness (woe, woe to you! says the Lord God), ²⁴ you built yourself a platform and made yourself a lofty place in every square; ²⁵ at the head of every street you built your lofty place and prostituted your beauty, offering yourself to every passer-by, and multiplying your whoring. ²⁶ You played the whore with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbours, multiplying your whoring, to provoke me to anger. ²⁷ Therefore I stretched out my hand against you, reduced your rations, and gave you up to the will of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd behaviour. ²⁸ You played the whore with the Assyrians, because you were insatiable; you played the whore with them, and still you were not satisfied. ²⁹ You multiplied your whoring with Chaldea, the land of merchants; and even with this you were not satisfied.

³⁰ How sick is your heart, says the Lord God, that you did all these things, the deeds of a brazen whore; ³¹ building your platform at the head of every street, and making your lofty place in every square! Yet you were not like a whore, because you scorned payment. ³² Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband! ³³ Gifts are given to all whores; but you gave your gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from all around for your whorings. ³⁴ So you were different from other women in your whorings: no one solicited you to play the whore; and you gave payment, while no payment was given to you; you were different.

³⁵ Therefore, O whore, hear the word of the Lord: ³⁶ Thus says the Lord God, Because your lust was poured out and your nakedness uncovered in your whoring with your lovers, and because of all your abominable idols, and because of the blood of your children that you gave to them, ³⁷ therefore, I will gather all your lovers, with whom you took pleasure, all those you loved and all those you hated; I will gather them against you from all around, and will uncover your nakedness to them, so that they may see all your nakedness. ³⁸ I will judge you as women who commit adultery and shed blood are judged, and bring blood upon you in wrath and jealousy. ³⁹ I will deliver you into their hands, and they shall throw down your platform and break down your lofty places; they shall strip you of your clothes and take your beautiful objects and leave you naked and bare. ⁴⁰ They shall bring up a mob against you, and they shall stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords. ⁴¹ They shall burn your houses and execute judgements on you in the sight of many women; I will stop you from playing the whore, and you shall also make no more payments. ⁴² So I will satisfy my fury on you, and my jealousy shall turn away from you; I will be calm, and will be angry no longer. ⁴³ Because you have not remembered the days of your youth, but have enraged me with all these things; therefore, I have returned your deeds upon your head, says the Lord God.

Have you not committed lewdness beyond all your abominations? ⁴⁴ See, everyone who uses proverbs will use this proverb about you, ‘Like mother, like daughter.’ ⁴⁵ You are the daughter of your mother, who loathed her husband and her children; and you are the sister of your sisters, who loathed their husbands and their children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite. ⁴⁶ Your elder sister is Samaria, who lived with her daughters to the north of you; and your younger sister, who lived to the south of you, is Sodom with her daughters. ⁴⁷ You not only followed their ways, and acted according to their abominations; within a very little time you were more corrupt than they in all your ways. ⁴⁸ As I live, says the Lord God, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. ⁴⁹ This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. ⁵⁰ They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it. ⁵¹ Samaria has not committed half your sins; you have committed more abominations than they, and have made your sisters appear righteous by all the abominations that you have committed. ⁵² Bear your disgrace, you also, for you have brought about for your sisters a more favourable judgement; because of your sins in which you acted more abominably than they, they are more in the right than you. So be ashamed, you also, and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous.

⁵³ I will restore their fortunes, the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters and the fortunes of Samaria and her daughters, and I will restore your own fortunes along with theirs, ⁵⁴ in order that you may bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all that you have done, becoming a consolation to them. ⁵⁵ As for your sisters, Sodom and her daughters shall return to their former state, Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former state, and you and your daughters shall return to your former state. ⁵⁶ Was not your sister Sodom a byword in your mouth in the day of your pride, ⁵⁷ before your wickedness was uncovered? Now you are a mockery to the daughters of Aram^[g] and all her neighbours, and to the daughters of the Philistines, those all around who despise you. ⁵⁸ You must bear the penalty of your lewdness and your abominations, says the Lord.

An Everlasting Covenant

⁵⁹ Yes, thus says the Lord God: I will deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath, breaking the covenant; ⁶⁰ yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish with you an everlasting covenant. ⁶¹ Then you will remember your ways, and be ashamed when I^[h] take your sisters, both your elder and your younger, and give them to you as daughters, but not on account of my^[i] covenant with you. ⁶² I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, ⁶³ in order that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I forgive you all that you have done, says the Lord God.