Ezekiel 16
English Standard Version
The Lord's Faithless Bride
16 Again the word of the Lord came to me: 2 (A)“Son of man, (B)make known to Jerusalem her abominations, 3 and say, Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth are of the land of the Canaanites; your father was an (C)Amorite and your mother a (D)Hittite. 4 And as for your birth, (E)on the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. 5 No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you, (F)but you were cast out on the open field, for you were abhorred, (G)on the day that you were born.
6 “And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing (H)in your blood, I said to you (I)in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you (J)in your blood, ‘Live!’ 7 (K)I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall (L)and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet (M)you were naked and bare.
8 “When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and (N)I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made my vow to you (O)and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, (P)and you became mine. 9 Then I bathed you with water and washed off your blood from you and (Q)anointed you with oil. 10 (R)I clothed you also with embroidered cloth and shod you with fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk.[a] 11 (S)And I adorned you with ornaments and (T)put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck. 12 And I put a ring on your nose and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. 13 Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth. (U)You ate fine flour and honey and oil. (V)You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. 14 And (W)your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you, declares the Lord God.
15 (X)“But you trusted in your beauty (Y)and played the whore[b] because of your renown (Z)and lavished your whorings[c] on any passerby; your beauty[d] became his. 16 You took some of your garments and made for yourself colorful shrines, and on them played the whore. The like has never been, nor ever shall be.[e] 17 You also took (AA)your beautiful jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and (AB)made for yourself images of men, and with them played the whore. 18 And you took your embroidered garments to cover them, (AC)and set my oil and my incense before them. 19 (AD)Also my bread that I gave you—(AE)I fed you with fine flour and oil and honey—you set before them for (AF)a pleasing aroma; and so it was, declares the Lord God. 20 (AG)And you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and (AH)these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your whorings so small a matter 21 that you slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire to them? 22 And in all your abominations and your whorings you did not remember (AI)the days of your youth, (AJ)when you were naked and bare, wallowing in your blood.
23 “And after all your wickedness (woe, woe to you! declares the Lord God), 24 you built yourself (AK)a vaulted chamber and made yourself a lofty place in every square. 25 At the head of every street (AL)you built your lofty place and made (AM)your beauty an abomination, (AN)offering yourself[f] to any passerby and multiplying your whoring. 26 (AO)You also played the whore (AP)with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, (AQ)multiplying your whoring, (AR)to provoke me to anger. 27 Behold, therefore, I stretched out my hand against you (AS)and diminished your allotted portion (AT)and delivered you to the greed of your enemies, (AU)the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd behavior. 28 (AV)You played the whore also (AW)with the Assyrians, because you were not satisfied; yes, you played the whore with them, and still you were not satisfied. 29 You multiplied your whoring also with the trading land (AX)of Chaldea, and even with this you were not satisfied.
30 “How sick is your heart,[g] declares the Lord God, because you did all these things, the deeds of a brazen prostitute, 31 building your vaulted chamber at the head of every street, and making your lofty place in every square. Yet you were not like a prostitute, (AY)because you scorned payment. 32 Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband! 33 Men give gifts to all prostitutes, (AZ)but you gave your gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from every side with your whorings. 34 So you were different from other women in your whorings. No one solicited you to play the whore, and (BA)you gave payment, while no payment was given to you; therefore 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 whorings with your lovers, and with all your abominable idols, (BB)and because of the blood of your children that you gave to them, 37 therefore, behold, (BC)I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, all those you loved and (BD)all those you hated. (BE)I will gather them against you from every side (BF)and will uncover your nakedness to them, that (BG)they may see all your nakedness. 38 (BH)And I will judge you (BI)as women who commit adultery and (BJ)shed blood are judged, and bring upon you the blood of wrath and jealousy. 39 And I will give you into their hands, and they shall throw down your (BK)vaulted chamber and break down (BL)your lofty places. (BM)They shall strip you of your clothes and take (BN)your beautiful jewels and leave you (BO)naked and bare. 40 (BP)They shall bring up a crowd against you, (BQ)and they shall stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords. 41 (BR)And they shall (BS)burn your houses and (BT)execute judgments upon you in the sight of many women. (BU)I will make you stop playing the whore, and (BV)you shall also give payment no more. 42 (BW)So will I satisfy my wrath on you, and my jealousy shall depart from you. I will be calm and will no more be angry. 43 Because you have not remembered (BX)the days of your youth, but have enraged me with all these things, therefore, behold, (BY)I have returned your deeds upon your head, declares the Lord God. Have you not (BZ)committed lewdness in addition to all your abominations?
44 “Behold, everyone (CA)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 (CB)your sisters, who loathed their husbands and their children. (CC)Your mother was a Hittite and (CD)your father an Amorite. 46 And (CE)your elder sister is Samaria, who lived with her daughters to the north of you; and (CF)your younger sister, who lived to the south of you, is Sodom with her daughters. 47 (CG)Not only did you walk in their ways and do according to their abominations; within a very little time (CH)you were more corrupt than they in all your ways. 48 (CI)As I live, declares the Lord God, your sister (CJ)Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. 49 Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, (CK)excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and (CL)did an abomination before me. So (CM)I removed them, when I saw it. 51 (CN)Samaria has not committed half your sins. You have committed more abominations than they, and (CO)have made your sisters appear righteous by all the abominations that you have committed. 52 (CP)Bear your disgrace, you also, for you have intervened on behalf of your sisters. 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 (CQ)“I will restore their fortunes, both the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters, and the fortunes of Samaria and her daughters, and I will restore your own fortunes in their midst, 54 that you may bear your disgrace (CR)and be ashamed of all that you have done, (CS)becoming a consolation to them. 55 As for your sisters, Sodom and her daughters shall return to their former state, (CT)and Samaria and her daughters shall return (CU)to their former state, (CV)and you and your daughters shall return (CW)to your former state. 56 Was not your sister Sodom a byword in your mouth (CX)in the day of your pride, 57 before your wickedness was uncovered? Now you have become (CY)an object of reproach for the daughters of Syria[h] and all those around her, and for (CZ)the daughters of the Philistines, (DA)those all around who despise you. 58 (DB)You bear the penalty of your lewdness and your abominations, declares the Lord.
The Lord's Everlasting Covenant
59 “For thus says the Lord God: I will deal with you as you have done, you (DC)who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant, 60 yet (DD)I will remember my covenant with you (DE)in the days of your youth, (DF)and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant. 61 (DG)Then you will remember your ways (DH)and be ashamed when you take (DI)your sisters, both your elder and your younger, and I give them to you (DJ)as daughters, but not on account of[i] the covenant with you. 62 I will establish my covenant with you, (DK)and you shall know that I am the Lord, 63 that you may remember and be confounded, and (DL)never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord God.”
Footnotes
- Ezekiel 16:10 Or with rich fabric
- Ezekiel 16:15 Or were unfaithful; also verses 16, 17, 26, 28
- Ezekiel 16:15 Or unfaithfulness; also verses 20, 22, 25, 26, 29, 33, 34, 36
- Ezekiel 16:15 Hebrew it
- Ezekiel 16:16 The meaning of this Hebrew sentence is uncertain
- Ezekiel 16:25 Hebrew spreading your legs
- Ezekiel 16:30 Revocalization yields How I am filled with anger against you
- Ezekiel 16:57 Some manuscripts (compare Syriac) of Edom
- Ezekiel 16:61 Or not apart from
Ezekiel 16
Common English Bible
Jerusalem’s unfaithfulness
16 The Lord’s word came to me: 2 Human one, show Jerusalem her detestable practices. 3 Say, The Lord God proclaims to Jerusalem: By origin and birth you are from the land of Canaan. Your father was an Amorite, your mother a Hittite. 4 This is how you were treated on the day you were born: Your umbilical cord wasn’t cut, you weren’t washed clean with water or rubbed with salt, and you weren’t wrapped in blankets. 5 No one took pity or cared enough to do any of these things for you. You were despised on the day of your birth and thrown out on the open field. 6 When I happened to come by, I saw you flailing about in your blood. I said to you while you were still bloody, “Live!” 7 I helped you to flourish like a young plant in the field, and you grew tall and became wonderfully endowed. Your breasts were firm, your hair beautifully thick. And you were completely naked.
8 When I passed by you, I realized that you were ready for love. So I spread my cloak over you and covered your nakedness. I made a solemn promise and entered into a covenant with you, and you became mine. This is what the Lord God says. 9 Then I washed you with water, rinsed off your blood, and poured oil on you. 10 I clothed you with colorful garments, put fine sandals on you, wrapped your head in linen, and covered you with jewels. 11 I adorned you with fine jewelry, and put bracelets on your wrists and a necklace around your neck. 12 I put a ring in your nose, earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown on your head. 13 I adorned you with gold and silver, and your garments were made of the finest linen and brocade. You ate the finest flour, honey, and oil. You became very beautiful, fit for royalty. 14 Among the nations you were famous for your beauty. It was perfect because of the splendor that I had given you. This is what the Lord God says.
15 But you trusted in your beauty and traded on your fame. At every opportunity, you seduced all who came by. 16 You took some of your clothing to make colorful shrines and prostituted yourself in them. 17 You took the beautiful gold and silver jewelry that I had given to you, and you made male images for yourself and prostituted yourself with them. 18 You took your fine garments and clothed them. You set my oil and incense before them. 19 You set my food that I had given you to eat—fine wheat, oil, and honey—before them as a pleasing aroma. This is what the Lord God says. 20 You took your sons and daughters, which you had borne to me, and you sacrificed these to them so they could consume them. Was this promiscuity of yours a small thing? 21 You slaughtered my sons and placed them in the fire for them! 22 In all your detestable practices and promiscuities, you didn’t remember the days of your infancy when you lay completely naked, flailing about in your blood.
23 After all your wickedness—doom, doom to you, proclaims the Lord God— 24 you built a pavilion for yourself and set up platforms in every square. 25 At every crossroad you built your platform and degraded your beauty by spreading your legs to all comers. And so you encouraged even more promiscuity. 26 You prostituted yourself with the Egyptians, your neighbors with the large sexual organs, and as you added to your seductions, you provoked me to anger. 27 So I used my power against you, cut off your allowance, and gave you up to the passions of the Philistine women who had been confounded by your infamous ways and had rejected you. 28 Still not satisfied, you prostituted yourself to the Assyrians, but they weren’t enough for you either. 29 So you prostituted yourself with the Babylonians, the land of traders, but again you weren’t satisfied. 30 How sick was your heart—the Lord God proclaims—that you could do all these things, the deeds of a hardened prostitute. 31 But you weren’t like an ordinary prostitute! When you built your pavilion at the head of every street and made your platform in every square, you refused to be paid. 32 You are like an adulterous wife: you take in strangers instead of your husband. 33 Ordinary prostitutes are given gifts, but you gave your gifts to all your lovers. From every direction you even bribed them to come to you for your sexual favors. 34 As a prostitute, you were more perverse than other women. No one approached you for sexual favors, but you yourself gave gifts instead of receiving them. You are perversion itself! 35 Therefore, you prostitute, hear the Lord’s word!
36 The Lord God proclaims: You were in a constant state of arousal[a] and exposed yourself when you acted like a prostitute with your lovers and with the idols to which you gave your children’s blood. 37 Therefore, I will now gather all of your lovers whom you pleased, the ones you loved and the ones you rejected. I will gather them against you from all around, and I will expose you to them. They will see it all. 38 I will convict you of adultery and murder, and I will hand you over in bloody fury and zeal. 39 I will hand you over to them, and they will tear down your pavilion and destroy your platforms. They will strip you of your garments, take your beautiful jewels, and they will leave you completely naked. 40 They will bring an army against you, pelt you with stones, and slaughter you with their swords. 41 They will burn down your houses and execute judgments against you in the sight of many women. I will bring an end to your prostitution; indeed, you will never again give payment. 42 When I’ve satisfied my anger, and my rage has turned away from you, I will be calm and no longer angry. 43 Because you didn’t remember your youthful days, and infuriated me with all these things, I will hold you accountable for what you’ve done. This is what the Lord God says.
Have you not added bad reputation to all your detestable acts? 44 Now everyone who speaks in proverbs will say this about you: “Like mother, like daughter.” 45 You are your mother’s daughter! She loathed her husband and also her children. You are just like your sisters too! They also loathed their husbands and children. Your mother was a Hittite, and your father was an Amorite. 46 Your older sister is Samaria, who lives with her daughters in the north. Your younger sister is Sodom, who lives with her daughters in the south. 47 You didn’t follow in their ways or engage in their detestable practices in any small way. You were far more destructive. 48 As surely as I live, says the Lord God, not even your sister Sodom and her daughters did what you and your daughters have done! 49 This is the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were proud, had plenty to eat, and enjoyed peace and prosperity; but she didn’t help the poor and the needy. 50 They became haughty and did detestable things in front of me, and I turned away from them as soon as I saw it.
51 Samaria didn’t sin even half as much as you did. You’ve so outstripped her in multiplying your detestable practices, with all the detestable things you’ve done, that you’ve even made your sisters seem innocent. 52 Bear your disgrace, which has actually improved your sisters’ position. Because your sins and detestable acts were greater than theirs, they are now more righteous than you. Be ashamed, and bear the disgrace of making your sisters righteous! 53 I will improve the circumstances of Sodom and her daughters and the circumstances of Samaria and her daughters. And what’s left of your fortune will go to them, 54 so that you will bear your disgrace and be humiliated by all that you’ve done to make them feel better. 55 Then your sister Sodom and her daughters will return to their former state, and your sister Samaria and her daughters will return to their former state. You and your daughters will return to your former state, 56 but you will no longer talk about your sister Sodom as in your haughty days 57 before your wickedness was exposed. You are now the reproach of all the daughters of Edom[b] and all those around her, including the daughters of the Philistines. They mock you on every side. 58 You alone must bear your bad reputation and your detestable ways. This is what the Lord says.
59 The Lord God proclaims: I will do to you just as you have done, despising solemn pledges and breaking covenants. 60 Nevertheless, I will remember my covenant with you when you were young, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. 61 And you will remember your ways and be ashamed, when in spite of your covenant I[c] take your big sisters and little sisters from you and give them back to you as daughters. 62 I myself will establish my covenant with you, and you will know that I am the Lord. 63 Then you will remember and be ashamed, and you won’t even open your mouth because of your shame, after I’ve forgiven you for all that you’ve done. This is what the Lord God says.
Footnotes
- Ezekiel 16:36 Heb uncertain
- Ezekiel 16:57 Syr; MT Aram
- Ezekiel 16:61 LXX; MT you
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible