Ezekiel 16
16
Jerusalem as an Adulterous Bride
1Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 2#Eze 22:2; 20:4Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations, 3#Eze 16:45; Ge 15:16and 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#Hos 2:3As 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. 5No 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.
6When 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#Ex 1:7; Dt 1:10I 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#Ru 3:9; Jer 2:2–3Now 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#Ru 3:3; Ps 23:5Then I washed you with water. Indeed, I thoroughly washed away your blood from you, and I anointed you with oil. 10#Eze 16:18; 16:13I 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#Ge 24:22; 24:47; 41:42I decked you also with ornaments, and put bracelets on your hands, and a chain on your neck. 12I put a jewel on your forehead, and earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown on your head. 13#Dt 32:13–14; 1Ki 4:21Thus 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#La 2:15; 1Ki 10:24Then 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#Isa 57:8; Jer 2:20But you trusted in your own beauty, and played the harlot because of your renown, and poured out your fornications on every willing passerby. 16#2Ki 23:7Of 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. 17You 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. 18Then you took your embroidered garments and covered them. And you have set My oil and My incense before them. 19#Eze 16:13My 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#Eze 23:37; Ex 13:2Moreover 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#2Ki 17:17You have slain My children and delivered them up to idols by causing them to pass through the fire. 22#Jer 2:2; Eze 16:43Besides 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.
23After all your wickedness (Woe, woe to you! says the Lord God) 24#Ps 78:58; Isa 57:7you also built for yourself a shrine and have made yourself a high place in every street. 25#Jer 3:2; Eze 16:31You 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#Eze 23:19–21; 20:7–8You have also committed fornication with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, and increased your harlotries to provoke Me to anger. 27#Isa 9:12; Eze 16:57Therefore 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#2Ki 16:7; 16:10–18You 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. 29You have moreover multiplied your fornication with the land of merchants, Chaldea. And yet you were not satisfied even with this.
30#Jer 3:3; Pr 9:13How weak is your heart, says the Lord God, seeing you do all these things, the works of an imperious harlot. 31#Isa 52:3; Eze 16:33–34When 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.
32You have been as a wife who commits adultery, who takes strangers instead of her husband! 33#Isa 57:9; Hos 8:9–10Men 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. 34Thus 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.
35Therefore, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord. 36#Eze 23:10Thus 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#Jer 13:22; Hos 2:10therefore 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#Lev 20:10; Ge 9:6I 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#Eze 23:26; Hos 2:3I 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#Eze 23:47; Hab 1:6–10They shall also bring up a company against you, and they shall stone you with stones, and thrust you through with their swords. 41#Eze 23:48; 2Ki 25:9They 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#Eze 5:13; 39:29So 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#Eze 16:22; Ps 78:42Because 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#Eze 18:2–3; 1Sa 24:13Everyone who uses proverbs shall use this proverb against you, saying, “Like mother, like daughter.” 45#Isa 1:4; Eze 23:37–39You 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#Eze 23:4; 16:48–49Now 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#2Ki 21:9; Eze 5:6–7Yet 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#Mt 10:15As I live, says the Lord God, Sodom your sister has not done, she nor her daughters, as you and your daughters have done.
49#Ge 13:10; Ps 138:6This 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#Ge 13:13; 18:20They were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I took them away when I saw it. 51#Jer 3:8–11Moreover, 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. 52Also 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#Isa 19:24–25; Eze 29:14Yet 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#Jer 2:26; Eze 14:22–23in 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#Eze 16:53; 36:11Your 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. 56As the name of your sister Sodom was not mentioned by your mouth in the day of your pride, 57#2Ki 16:5–7; 2Ch 28:5–6before 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#Eze 23:49You have borne the punishment of your lewdness and your abominations, says the Lord.
An Everlasting Covenant
59#Isa 24:5; Eze 17:19For 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#Lev 26:42; Isa 55:3Nevertheless I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. 61#Jer 50:4–5; Eze 20:43Then 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#Jer 24:7; Eze 6:7Thus I will establish My covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, 63#Ro 3:19; Ps 39:9in 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.
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Ezekiel 16: MEV
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