Hosea 2:5
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
5 For their mother has prostituted herself;
she who conceived them has acted shamefully.
For she said, “I will go after my lovers;
they give me my bread and my water,
my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.”(A)
Hosea 3:1
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
Further Assurances of God’s Redeeming Love
3 The Lord said to me again, “Go, love a woman who has a lover and is an adulteress, just as the Lord loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.”(A)
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Hosea 2:8
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8 She did not know
that it was I who gave her
the grain, the wine, and the oil
and who lavished upon her silver
and gold that they used for Baal.(A)
Jeremiah 44:17-18
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
17 Instead, we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out libations to her, just as we and our ancestors, our kings and our officials, used to do in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. We used to have plenty of food and prospered and saw no misfortune.(A) 18 But from the time we stopped making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her, we have lacked everything and have perished by the sword and by famine.”(B)
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Isaiah 1:21
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
The Degenerate City
21 How the faithful city
has become a prostitute!
She that was full of justice,
righteousness lodged in her—
but now murderers!(A)
Hosea 2:12-13
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
12 I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees,
of which she said,
“These are my pay,
which my lovers have given me.”
I will make them a forest,
and the wild animals shall devour them.(A)
13 I will punish her for the festival days of the Baals,
to whom she offered incense
and decked herself with her rings and jewelry
and went after her lovers
and forgot me, says the Lord.(B)
Revelation 17:1-5
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
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) 2 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) 3 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) 4 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) 5 and on her forehead was written a name, a mystery: “Babylon the great, mother[d] of whores[e] and of earth’s abominations.”(E)
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Revelation 2:20-23
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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, 23 and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am the one who searches minds and hearts, and I will give to each of you as your works deserve.(C)
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Hosea 9:10
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10 Like grapes in the wilderness,
I found Israel.
Like the first fruit on the fig tree,
in its first season,
I saw your ancestors.
But they came to Baal-peor
and consecrated themselves to a thing of shame
and became detestable like the thing they loved.(A)
Hosea 8:9
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
9 For they have gone up to Assyria,
a wild ass wandering alone;
Ephraim has bargained for lovers.(A)
Hosea 4:12-15
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
12 My people consult a piece of wood,
and their divining rod gives them oracles.
For a spirit of prostitution has led them astray,
and they have prostituted themselves, forsaking their God.(A)
13 They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains
and make offerings upon the hills,
under oak, poplar, and terebinth
because their shade is good.
Therefore your daughters prostitute themselves,
and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.(B)
14 I will not punish your daughters when they prostitute themselves
nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery,
for the men themselves go aside with prostitutes
and sacrifice with female attendants;
thus a people without understanding comes to ruin.(C)
15 Though you prostitute yourself, O Israel,
do not let Judah become guilty.
Do not enter into Gilgal
or go up to Beth-aven,
and do not swear, “As the Lord lives.”(D)
Hosea 4:5
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
5 You shall stumble by day;
the prophet also shall stumble with you by night,
and I will destroy your mother.(A)
Hosea 2:2
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
Israel’s Infidelity, Punishment, and Redemption
2 Plead with your mother, plead—
for she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband—
that she put away her prostitution from her face
and her adultery from between her breasts,(A)
Daniel 9:5-8
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
5 we have sinned and done wrong, acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and ordinances.(A) 6 We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our ancestors, and to all the people of the land.
7 “Righteousness is on your side, O Lord, but open shame, as at this day, falls on us, the people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them because of the treachery that they have committed against you.(B) 8 Open shame, O Lord, falls on us, our kings, our princes, and our ancestors because we have sinned against you.
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Ezekiel 23:40-44
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40 They even sent for men to come from far away, to whom a messenger was sent, and they came. For them you bathed yourself, painted your eyes, and decked yourself with ornaments;(A) 41 you sat on a stately couch, with a table spread before it on which you had placed my incense and my oil.(B) 42 The sound of a raucous multitude was around her, with many of the rabble brought in drunken from the wilderness, and they put bracelets on the arms of the women and beautiful crowns upon their heads.(C)
43 Then I said, “Ah, she is worn out with adulteries, but they carry on their sexual acts with her.” 44 They have[a] gone in to her as one goes in to a prostitute. Thus they went in to Oholah and to Oholibah, wanton women.
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- 23.44 Q ms: MT he has
Ezekiel 23:16-17
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16 When she saw them she lusted after them and sent messengers to them in Chaldea. 17 And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their lust, and after she defiled herself with them, she turned from them in disgust.
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Ezekiel 23:5-11
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5 Oholah prostituted herself while she was mine; she lusted after her lovers the Assyrians, warriors[a](A) 6 clothed in blue, governors and commanders, all of them handsome young men, mounted horsemen. 7 She bestowed her sexual favors upon them, the choicest men of Assyria all of them, and she defiled herself with all the idols of everyone for whom she lusted.(B) 8 She did not give up her prostitutions that she had practiced since Egypt, for in her youth men had lain with her and fondled her virgin bosom and poured out their lust upon her.(C) 9 Therefore I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, into the hands of the Assyrians, for whom she lusted.(D) 10 These uncovered her nakedness; they seized her sons and her daughters, and they killed her with the sword. Judgment was executed upon her, and she became a byword among women.(E)
11 Her sister Oholibah saw this, yet she was more corrupt than she in her lusting and in her prostitutions, which were worse than those of her sister.(F)
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- 23.5 Meaning of Heb uncertain
Ezekiel 16:28-34
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
28 You prostituted yourself with the Assyrians because you were insatiable; you prostituted yourself with them, and still you were not satisfied.(A) 29 You multiplied your prostitution with Chaldea, the land of merchants, and even with this you were not satisfied.(B)
30 How sick is your heart,[a] 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.(C) 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.
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- 16.30 Or How furious I am with you
Ezekiel 16:15-16
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
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)
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Jeremiah 11:13
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13 For your gods have become as many as your towns, O Judah, and as many as the streets of Jerusalem are the altars to shame you have set up, altars to make offerings to Baal.
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Jeremiah 3:1-9
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
Unfaithful Israel
3 If[a] a man divorces his wife
and she goes from him
and becomes another man’s wife,
will he return to her?
Would not such a land be greatly polluted?
You have prostituted yourself with many lovers,
and would you return to me?
says the Lord.(A)
2 Look up to the bare heights[b] and see!
Where have you not been lain with?
By the waysides you sat waiting for lovers,
like a nomad in the wilderness.
You have polluted the land
with your prostitutions and wickedness.(B)
3 Therefore the showers have been withheld,
and the spring rain has not come,
yet you have the forehead of a prostitute;
you refuse to be ashamed.(C)
4 Have you not just now called to me,
“My Father, you are the friend of my youth—(D)
5 will he be angry forever,
will he be indignant to the end?”
This is how you have spoken,
but you have done all the evil that you could.(E)
A Call to Repentance
6 The Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah: Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree and prostituted herself there?(F) 7 And I thought, “After she has done all this she will return to me,” but she did not return, and her false sister Judah saw it.(G) 8 She[c] saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce, yet her false sister Judah did not fear, but she also went and prostituted herself.(H) 9 Because she took her prostitution so lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree.(I)
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Jeremiah 2:25-27
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
25 Keep your feet from going bare
and your throat from thirst.
But you said, “It is no use,
for I have loved strangers,
and after them I will go.”(A)
26 As a thief is shamed when caught,
so the house of Israel shall be shamed:
they, their kings, their officials,
their priests, and their prophets,(B)
27 who say to a tree, “You are my father,”
and to a stone, “You gave me birth.”
For they have turned their backs to me
and not their faces.
But in the time of their trouble they say,
“Come and save us!”(C)
Jeremiah 2:20
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
20 For long ago you broke your yoke
and burst your bonds,
and you said, “I will not serve!”
On every high hill
and under every green tree
you sprawled and prostituted yourself.(A)
Isaiah 57:7-8
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
7 Upon a high and lofty mountain
you have set your bed,
and there you went up to offer sacrifice.(A)
8 Behind the door and the doorpost
you have set up your symbol,
for in deserting me[a] you have uncovered your bed;
you have gone up to it;
you have made it wide;
and you have made a bargain for yourself with them;
you have loved their bed;
you have gazed on their nakedness.[b](B)
Isaiah 50:1
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
50 Thus says the Lord:
Where is your mother’s bill of divorce
with which I dismissed her?
Or which of my creditors is it
to whom I have sold you?
No, because of your sins you were sold,
and for your transgressions your mother was dismissed.(A)
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.