Jerusalem as an Adulterous Bride

16 Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying: ² Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations, ³ and say, Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem: Your birth and your nativity are from the land of Canaan. 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 in water to cleanse you. You were not rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. ⁵ No eye pitied you to do any of these to you, to have compassion on you. But you were cast out in the open field, to the loathing of your person, in the day that you were born.

⁶ When I passed by you and saw you polluted in your own blood, I said to you when you were in your blood, “Live!” Indeed, I said to you when you were in your blood, “Live!” ⁷ I have caused you to multiply as the bud of the field, and you have increased and become tall, and you have reached the age of fine ornaments. Your breasts were fashioned and your hair had grown, yet you were naked and bare.

⁸ Now when I passed by you and looked upon you, you were old enough for love. So I spread My garment over you and covered your nakedness. Indeed, I swore to you, and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord God, and you became Mine.

⁹ Then I washed you with water. Indeed, I thoroughly washed away your blood from you, and I anointed you with oil. ¹⁰ I clothed you also with embroidered work, and put sandals of porpoise skin on your feet, and girded you about with fine linen, and covered you with silk. ¹¹ I decked you also with ornaments, and put bracelets on your hands, and a chain on your neck. ¹² I put a jewel on your forehead, and earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown on your head. ¹³ Thus you were decked with gold and silver. And your raiment was of fine linen, and silk, and embroidered work. You ate fine flour, and honey, and oil. And you were exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. ¹⁴ Then your renown went out among the nations for your beauty. For it was perfect through My comeliness which I had put upon you, says the Lord God.

¹⁵ But you trusted in your own beauty, and played the harlot because of your renown, and poured out your fornications on every willing passerby. ¹⁶ Of your garments you took and decked your high places with various colors and played the harlot on them, which should never come about or happen. ¹⁷ You have also taken your fair jewels made of My gold and My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men that you might commit harlotry with them. ¹⁸ Then you took your embroidered garments and covered them. And you have set My oil and My incense before them. ¹⁹ My bread also which I gave you, fine flour, and oil, and honey, with which I fed you, you have even set before them for a sweet savor. And thus it was, says the Lord God.

²⁰ Moreover you have taken your sons and your daughters, whom you have borne to Me, and these you have sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your harlotries so small a matter? ²¹ You have slain My children and delivered them up to idols by causing them to pass through the fire. ²² Besides all your abominations and your harlotries you have not remembered the days of your youth when you were naked and bare and were polluted in your blood.

²³ After all your wickedness (Woe, woe to you! says the Lord God) ²⁴ you also built for yourself a shrine and have made yourself a high place in every street. ²⁵ You have built yourself a high place at the head of every street, and have made your beauty to be abhorred, and have spread your legs to every passerby to multiply your harlotries. ²⁶ You have also committed fornication with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, and increased your harlotries to provoke Me to anger. ²⁷ Therefore I have stretched out My hand against you and have diminished your ordinary food and delivered you to the will of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines who are ashamed of your lewd conduct. ²⁸ You have played the harlot also with the Assyrians because you were insatiable. Indeed, you have played the harlot with them, and yet could not be satisfied. ²⁹ You have moreover multiplied your fornication with the land of merchants, Chaldea. And yet you were not satisfied even with this.

³⁰ How weak is your heart, says the Lord God, seeing you do all these things, the works of an imperious harlot. ³¹ When you built your shrine at the head of every street and made your high place in every square, you have not been as a harlot in that you scorned payment.

³² You have been as a wife who commits adultery, who takes strangers instead of her husband! ³³ Men give gifts to all harlots. But you give your gifts to all your lovers, and hire them that they may come to you on every side for your harlotry. ³⁴ Thus you are different from other women in your harlotries in that no one follows you to commit harlotries, because you give money, and no money is given to you. Thus you are different.

³⁵ Therefore, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord. ³⁶ Thus says the Lord God, Because your filthiness was poured out and your nakedness discovered through your harlotries with your lovers, and with all the idols of your abominations, and by the blood of your children, which you gave to idols, ³⁷ therefore I will gather all your lovers with whom you have taken pleasure and all those whom you have loved with all those whom you have hated. I will even gather them from all around against you and will reveal your nakedness to them so that they may see all your nakedness. ³⁸ I will judge you as women who commit adultery or shed blood are judged. And I will bring on you the blood of fury and jealousy. ³⁹ I will also give you into their hand, and they shall throw down your shrines, and shall break down your high places. They shall strip you also of your clothes, and shall take your fair jewels, and leave you naked and bare. ⁴⁰ They shall also bring up a company against you, and they shall stone you with stones, and thrust you through with their swords. ⁴¹ They shall burn your houses with fire and execute judgments on you in the sight of many women. And I will cause you to cease from playing the harlot, and you also shall give no hire anymore. ⁴² So I will make My fury toward you to rest, and My jealousy shall depart from you, and I will be quiet, and will be angry no more.

⁴³ Because you have not remembered the days of your youth, but have enraged Me in all these things, I also will recompense your way upon your head, says the Lord God, so that you shall not commit this lewdness above all your other abominations.

⁴⁴ Everyone who uses proverbs shall use this proverb against you, saying, “Like mother, like daughter.” ⁴⁵ You are your mother’s daughter 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 Now your elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters who dwell north of you. And your younger sister who dwells south of you is Sodom and her daughters. ⁴⁷ Yet you have not walked after their ways, or done according to their abominations. But, as if that were a very little thing, you were corrupted more than they in all your ways. ⁴⁸ As I live, says the Lord God, Sodom your sister has not done, she nor her daughters, as you and your daughters have done.

⁴⁹ This was the iniquity of your sister Sodom. Pride, abundance of bread, and careless ease was in her and in her daughters, but she did strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. ⁵⁰ They were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I took them away when I saw it. ⁵¹ Moreover, Samaria did not commit half of your sins. But you have multiplied your abominations more than they and have made your sisters appear righteous in all your abominations which you have done. ⁵² Also bear your own shame in that you have made judgment favorable to your sisters. Because of your sins that you have committed more abominable than they, they are more righteous than you. Indeed, be humiliated also and bear your shame in that you have made your sisters appear righteous.

⁵³ Yet I shall restore their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, and along with them your own captivity, ⁵⁴ in order that you may bear your own shame and may be humiliated in all that you have done in that you are a comfort to them. ⁵⁵ Your sisters, Sodom and her daughters and Samaria and her daughters, shall return to their former state, and you and your daughters shall return to your former state. ⁵⁶ As the name of your sister Sodom was not mentioned by your mouth in the day of your pride, ⁵⁷ before your wickedness was uncovered, so now you have become the reproach of the daughters of Edom and all who are around her, the daughters of the Philistines, those all around who despise you. ⁵⁸ You have borne the punishment of your lewdness and your abominations, says the Lord.

An Everlasting Covenant

⁵⁹ For thus, says the Lord God, I will even deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath by breaking the covenant. ⁶⁰ Nevertheless I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. ⁶¹ Then you shall remember your ways and be ashamed when you receive your sisters, your elder and your younger. And I will give them to you as daughters, but not because of your covenant. ⁶² Thus 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 humiliated, and never open your mouth anymore because of your shame, when I am pacified toward you for all that you have done, says the Lord God.