Add parallel Print Page Options

Elijah’s Letter

11 Moreover he made high places in the hill country of Judah and led the inhabitants of Jerusalem into unfaithfulness and made Judah go astray.(A)

Read full chapter

I myself will set my face against them and against their family and will cut them off from among their people, them and all who follow them in prostituting themselves to Molech.

Read full chapter

Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites on the mountain east of Jerusalem.(A)

Read full chapter

so that they may no longer offer their sacrifices for goat-demons, to whom they prostitute themselves. This shall be a statute forever to them throughout their generations.(A)

Read full chapter

The Great Whore and the Beast

17 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great whore[a] who is seated on many waters,(A) with whom the kings of the earth have engaged in sexual immorality[b] and with the wine of whose prostitution the inhabitants of the earth have become drunk.”(B) So he carried me away in the spirit[c] into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns.(C) The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her prostitution,(D) and on her forehead was written a name, a mystery: “Babylon the great, mother[d] of whores[e] and of earth’s abominations.”(E) And I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses to Jesus.

When I saw her, I was greatly amazed.(F)

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 17.1 Or prostitute
  2. 17.2 Or prostitution
  3. 17.3 Or in the Spirit
  4. 17.5 Or Babylon, the great mother
  5. 17.5 Or prostitutes

15 and it was allowed to give breath[a] to the image of the beast so that the image of the beast could even speak and cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. 16 Also, it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be given a brand on the right hand or the forehead,(A) 17 so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the brand, that is, the name of the beast or the number for its name.(B)

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 13.15 Or spirit

20 But I have this against you: you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet and is teaching and beguiling my servants to engage in sexual immorality[a] and to eat food sacrificed to idols.(A) 21 I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.[b](B) 22 Beware, I am throwing her on a bed, and those who commit adultery with her I am throwing into great distress, unless they repent of her doings,

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 2.20 Or prostitution
  2. 2.21 Or prostitution

15 “Alas for you who make your neighbors drink,
    pouring out your wrath until they are drunk,
    in order to gaze on their nakedness!”(A)

Read full chapter

15 Now if you are ready, when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, you should fall down and worship the statue that I have made. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire, and who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?”(A)

Read full chapter

that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, you are to fall down and worship the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.(A) Whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.”(B)

Read full chapter

28 For when I had brought them into the land that I swore to give them, then wherever they saw any high hill or any leafy tree, there they offered their sacrifices and presented the provocation of their offering; there they sent up their pleasing odors, and there they poured out their drink offerings.(A)

Read full chapter

15 But you trusted in your beauty and prostituted yourself because of your fame and lavished your prostitutions on any passer-by.[a](A) 16 You took some of your garments and made for yourself colorful high places and on them prostituted yourself; nothing like this has ever been or ever shall be.[b](B) 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 prostituted yourself,(C) 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 odor, 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 prostitutions were not enough!(D) 21 You slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering to them.(E) 22 And in all your abominations and your prostitutions you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, flailing about in your blood.(F)

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;(G) 25 at the head of every street you built your lofty place and prostituted your beauty, offering yourself[c] to every passer-by and multiplying your prostitution.(H) 26 You prostituted yourself with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors,[d] multiplying your prostitution, to provoke me to anger.(I) 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 behavior.(J) 28 You prostituted yourself with the Assyrians because you were insatiable; you prostituted yourself with them, and still you were not satisfied.(K) 29 You multiplied your prostitution with Chaldea, the land of merchants, and even with this you were not satisfied.(L)

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

35 Therefore, O prostitute, hear the word of the Lord: 36 Thus says the Lord God: Because your lust was poured out and your nakedness uncovered in your prostitution with your lovers, and because of all your abominable idols, and because of the blood of your children that you gave to them,(N) 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.(O) 38 I will judge you as women who commit adultery and shed blood are judged and bring blood upon you in wrath and jealousy.(P) 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.(Q) 40 They shall bring up a mob against you, and they shall stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords.(R) 41 They shall burn your houses and execute judgments on you in the sight of many women; I will stop you from prostituting yourself, and you shall also make no more payments.(S) 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?(T) 44 See, everyone who uses proverbs will use this proverb about you, “Like mother, like daughter.”(U) 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 big sister is Samaria, who lived with her daughters to the north of you; your little sister, who lived to the south of you, is Sodom with her daughters.(V) 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.(W) 48 As I live, says the Lord God, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done.(X) 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.(Y) 50 They were haughty and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.(Z) 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.(AA) 52 Bear your disgrace, you also, for you have brought about for your sisters a more favorable judgment; 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,(AB) 54 in order that you may bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all that you have done, becoming a consolation to them.(AC) 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 Edom[f] and all her neighbors and to the daughters of the Philistines, those all around who despise you.(AD) 58 You must bear the penalty of your lewdness and your abominations, says the Lord.(AE)

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,(AF) 60 yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish with you an everlasting covenant.(AG) 61 Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you receive your older and younger sisters and I give them to you as daughters, but not on account of my[g] covenant with you.(AH) 62 I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord,(AI) 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.(AJ)

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 16.15 Heb adds Let it be his
  2. 16.16 Meaning of Heb uncertain
  3. 16.25 Heb spreading your legs
  4. 16.26 Heb large-membered neighbors
  5. 16.30 Or How furious I am with you
  6. 16.57 Heb mss Syr: MT Aram
  7. 16.61 Heb lacks my

39 Thus they became unclean by their acts
    and prostituted themselves in their doings.(A)

Read full chapter

58 For they provoked him to anger with their high places;
    they moved him to jealousy with their idols.(A)

Read full chapter

Manasseh misled Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that they did more evil than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed before the people of Israel.

Read full chapter

13 but have walked in the way of the kings of Israel and have led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem into unfaithfulness, as the house of Ahab led Israel into unfaithfulness, and because you also have killed your brothers, members of your father’s house, who were better than you,(A)

Read full chapter

11 “Because King Manasseh of Judah has committed these abominations, has done things more wicked than all that the Amorites who were before him did, and has caused Judah also to sin with his idols,(A)

Read full chapter

22 When Joram saw Jehu, he said, “Is it peace, Jehu?” He answered, “What peace can there be, so long as the many prostitutions[a] and sorceries of your mother Jezebel continue?”(A)

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 9.22 Or idolatries

16 He will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he sinned and which he caused Israel to commit.”(A)

Read full chapter

but you have done evil above all those who were before you and have gone and made for yourself other gods and cast images, provoking me to anger, and have thrust me behind your back,(A)

Read full chapter

“You must demolish completely all the places where the nations whom you are about to dispossess served their gods, on the mountain heights, on the hills, and under every leafy tree. Break down their altars, smash their pillars, burn their sacred poles[a] with fire, and cut down the idols of their gods, and thus blot out their name from their places.(A) You shall not serve the Lord your God in such ways.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 12.3 Or Asherahs