Ezekiel 16
16
Jerusalem as an Adulterous Bride
1Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 2Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations, # Eze 20:4; 22:2 3and say, Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem: Your birth and your native land are from the land of Canaan. Your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite. # Ge 15:16; Eze 16:45 4As for your birth, on the day you were born # Hos 2:3 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!” 7I have caused you to multiply as the bud of the field, # Ex 1:7; Dt 1:10 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.
8When I passed by you and looked upon you, behold, your time was the time for love. So I spread My garment over you # Ru 3:9 and covered your nakedness. Indeed, I swore to you, and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord God, and you became Mine. # Jer 2:2–3
9Then I washed you with water. Indeed, I thoroughly washed away your blood from you, and I anointed you with oil. # Ru 3:3; Ps 23:5 10I clothed you also with embroidered work, # Eze 16:13, 18 and put sandals of porpoise skin on your feet, and girded you about with fine linen, and covered you with silk. 11I decked you also with ornaments, and put bracelets on your hands, # Ge 24:22, 47 and a chain on your neck. # Ge 41:42 12I put a jewel on your forehead, and earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown on your head. 13Thus 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. # Dt 32:13–14 And you were exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. # 1Ki 4:21 14Then your renown went out among the nations for your beauty. # 1Ki 10:24; La 2:15 For it was perfect through My comeliness which I had put upon you, says the Lord God.
15But you trusted in your own beauty, and played the harlot because of your renown, and poured out your fornications on every willing passerby. # Isa 57:8; Jer 2:20 16Of your garments you took and decked your high places with various colors and played the harlot on them, # 2Ki 23:7 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. 19My bread also which I gave you, fine flour, and oil, and honey, # Eze 16:13 with which I fed you, you have even set before them for a sweet aroma. And thus it was, says the Lord God.
20Moreover you have taken your sons and your daughters, whom you have borne to Me, # Ex 13:2 and these you have sacrificed to them to be devoured. # Eze 23:37 Were your harlotries so small a matter? 21You have slain My children and delivered them up to idols by causing them to pass through the fire. # 2Ki 17:17 22Besides all your abominations and your harlotries you have not remembered the days of your youth # Jer 2:2; Eze 16:43 when you were naked and bare and were polluted in your blood.
23After all your wickedness (Woe, woe to you! says the Lord God) 24you also built for yourself a shrine and have made yourself a high place in every street. # Ps 78:58; Isa 57:7 25You 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. # Jer 3:2; Eze 16:31 26You have also committed fornication with the Egyptians, # Eze 20:7–8; 23:19–21 your lustful neighbors, and increased your harlotries to provoke Me to anger. 27Therefore, behold, 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 # Isa 9:12; Eze 16:57 who are ashamed of your lewd conduct. 28You have played the harlot also with the Assyrians # 2Ki 16:7, 10–18 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.
30How weak is your heart, says the Lord God, seeing you do all these things, the works of an imperious harlot. # Pr 9:13; Jer 3:3 31When 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. # Isa 52:3
32You have been as a wife who commits adultery, who takes strangers instead of her husband! 33Men give gifts # Isa 57:9 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. # Hos 8:9–10 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. 36Thus 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, # Eze 23:10 37therefore 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. # Jer 13:22; Hos 2:10 38I will judge you as women who commit adultery # Lev 20:10 or shed blood are judged. # Ge 9:6 And I will bring on you the blood of fury and jealousy. 39I 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. # Eze 23:26; Hos 2:3 40They shall also bring up a company against you, and they shall stone you with stones, # Eze 23:47 and thrust you through with their swords. # Hab 1:6–10 41They shall burn your houses with fire # 2Ki 25:9 and execute judgments on you in the sight of many women. And I will cause you to cease from playing the harlot, # Eze 23:48 and you also shall give no hire anymore. 42So I will make My fury toward you to rest, # Eze 5:13; 39:29 and My jealousy shall depart from you, and I will be quiet, and will be angry no more.
43Because you have not remembered # Ps 78:42 the days of your youth, but have enraged Me in all these things, behold, 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. # Eze 16:22
44Behold, everyone who uses proverbs shall use this proverb against you, # 1Sa 24:13; Eze 18:2–3 saying, “Like mother, like daughter.” 45You 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. 46Now 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. # Eze 16:48–49; 23:4 47Yet 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. # 2Ki 21:9; Eze 5:6–7 48As I live, says the Lord God, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. # Mt 10:15
49Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom. # Ge 13:10 Pride, # Ps 138:6 abundance of bread, and careless ease was in her and in her daughters, but she did not strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. 50They were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I took them away when I saw it. # Ge 13:13; 18:20 51Moreover, 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. # Jer 3:8–11 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.
53Yet I shall restore their captivity, # Isa 19:24–25; Eze 29:14 the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, and along with them your own captivity, 54in order that you may bear your own shame and may be humiliated # Jer 2:26 in all that you have done in that you are a comfort to them. # Eze 14:22–23 55Your 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, 57before your wickedness was uncovered, so now you have become the reproach of the daughters of Edom # 2Ki 16:5–7 and all who are around her, the daughters of the Philistines, those all around who despise you. 58You have borne the punishment of your lewdness # Eze 23:49 and your abominations, says the Lord.
An Everlasting Covenant
59For thus, says the Lord God, I will certainly deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath by breaking the covenant. # Isa 24:5; Eze 17:19 60Nevertheless I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. # Lev 26:42; Isa 55:3 61Then you shall remember your ways and be ashamed # Eze 20:43 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. 62Thus I will establish My covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, # Jer 24:7; Eze 6:7 63in order that you may remember, and be humiliated, and never open your mouth anymore # Ps 39:9; Ro 3:19 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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The Holy Bible, Modern English Version
Copyright © 2024, 2017, 2014 by United Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House. All rights reserved.
Ezekiel 16
16
1 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
2 "Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abominations.
3 And you shall say: Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem: Your root and your lineage is from the land of Canaan; your father was an Amorite, and your mother was a Cethite.
4 And when you were born, on the day of your nativity, your umbilical cord was not cut, and you were not washed with water for health, nor salted with salt, nor wrapped with cloths.
5 No eye took pity on you, so as to do even one of these things to you, out of compassion for you. Instead, you were cast upon the face of the earth, in the abjection of your soul, on the day when you were born.
6 But, passing by you, I saw that you were wallowing in your own blood. And I said to you, when you were in your blood: 'Live.' I tell you that I said to you, in your blood: 'Live.'
7 I multiplied you like the seedling of the field. And you were multiplied and became great, and you advanced and arrived at the ornament of a woman. Your breasts rose up, and your hair grew. And you were naked and full of shame.
8 And I passed by you and saw you. And behold, your time was the time of lovers. And I spread my garment over you, and I covered your disgrace. And I swore to you, and I entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord God, and you became mine.
9 And I washed you with water, and I cleansed you of your blood. And I anointed you with oil.
10 And I covered you with embroidery, and I put violet shoes upon you, and I wrapped you in fine linen, and I clothed you with delicate garments.
11 I adorned you with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon your hands and a necklace around your neck.
12 And I put gold upon your face, and earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown upon your head.
13 And you were adorned with gold and silver, and you were clothed in fine linen, woven with many colors. You ate fine flour, and honey, and oil. And you became very beautiful. And you advanced to royal power.
14 And your renown went forth among the Gentiles, because of your beauty. For you were perfected by my beauty, which I had placed upon you, says the Lord God.
15 But, having confidence in your own beauty, you fornicated in your fame. And you presented your fornication to every passer-by, so as to become his.
16 And taking from your garments, you made for yourself exalted things, having sewed together disparate pieces. And you fornicated upon them, in a way that has not been done before, nor will be in the future.
17 And you took your beautiful items, made of my gold and my silver, which I gave to you, and you made for yourself images of men, and you fornicated with them.
18 And you used your multicolored vestments to cover these things. And you placed my oil and my incense before them.
19 And my bread, which I gave to you, the fine flour, and the oil, and the honey, by which I nourished you, you placed in their sight as a sweet fragrance. And so it was done, says the Lord God.
20 And you took your sons and your daughters, whom you bore for me, and you immolated them to be devoured. Is your fornication a small matter?
21 You have immolated my sons, and you have consecrated and delivered my sons to them.
22 And after all your abominations and fornications, you have not remembered the days of your youth, when you were naked and full of shame, wallowing in your own blood.
23 And it happened that, after all your wickedness, (woe, woe to you, says the Lord God)
24 you built for yourself a brothel, and you made for yourself a place of prostitution in every street.
25 At the head of every way, you set up a banner of your prostitution. And you caused your beauty to become abominable. And you distributed your feet to every passer-by. And you multiplied your fornications.
26 And you fornicated with the sons of Egypt, your neighbors, who have large bodies. And you multiplied your fornications, so as to provoke me.
27 Behold, I will extend my hand over you, and I will take away your justification. And I will give you to the souls of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who are ashamed of your wicked way.
28 You also fornicated with the sons of the Assyrians, for you were not yet done. And after you fornicated, even then, you were not satisfied.
29 And you multiplied your fornications in the land of Canaan with the Chaldeans. And even then, you were not satisfied.
30 With what can I cleanse your heart, says the Lord God, since you do all these things, the works of a woman who is a shameless prostitute?
31 For you have built your brothel at the head of every way, and you have made your exalted place on every street. And you have not even been like a choosy prostitute, increasing her price,
32 but instead like a woman who is an adulteress, who prefers strangers to her own husband.
33 Wages are given to all prostitutes. But you have given wages to all your lovers, and you have given gifts to them, so that they would enter to you from every side, in order to fornicate with you.
34 And it is done with you, in your fornications, contrary to the custom of women, and even after you, there will be no such fornication. For in as much as you have given payment, and not taken payment, what has been done in you is the contrary."
35 Because of this, O harlot, listen to the word of the Lord.
36 Thus says the Lord God: "Because your money has been poured out, and your disgrace has been uncovered, in your fornications with your lovers and with the idols of your abominations, in the blood of your sons, whom you gave to them:
37 Behold, I will gather all your lovers, with whom you have united, and all those whom you have loved, together with all those whom you have hated. And I will gather them together against you on every side. And I will uncover your disgrace before them, and they will see all your indecency.
38 And I will judge you with the judgment of adulteresses and of those who shed blood. And I will give you over to blood, in fury and in zeal.
39 And I will deliver you into their hands. And they will destroy your brothel and demolish your place of prostitution. And they will strip you of your vestments. And they will take away the ornaments of your beauty. And they will leave you behind, naked and full of disgrace.
40 And they will lead over you a multitude. And they will stone you with stones, and massacre you with their swords.
41 And they will burn up your houses with fire, and they will carry out judgments against you in the sight of many women. And you will cease from fornication, and no longer give payment.
42 And my indignation will be quieted in you. And my zeal will be taken from you. And I will rest, and no longer be angry.
43 For you have not remembered the days of your youth, and you have provoked me in all these things. Because of this, I also have delivered all your ways upon your head, says the Lord God, but I have not acted in accord with your wickedness in all your abominations.
44 Behold, all who speak a common proverb will take this up against you, saying: 'Like the mother, so also is her daughter.'
45 You are your mother's daughter, for she cast away her husband and her children. And you are the sister of your sisters, for they cast away their husbands and their children. Your mother was a Cethite, and your father was an Amorite.
46 And your older sister is Samaria, she and her daughters are those who live to your left. But your younger sister, who lives to your right, is Sodom and her daughters.
47 But neither have you walked in their ways. For you have done only a little less compared to their wickedness. You have acted almost more wickedly, in all your ways, than they have acted.
48 As I live, says the Lord God, your sister Sodom herself, and her daughters, have not done as you and your daughters have done.
49 Behold, this was the iniquity of Sodom, your sister: arrogance, indulgence in bread and abundance, and the idleness of her and her daughters; and they did not reach out their hand to the needy and the poor.
50 And they were exalted, and they committed abominations before me. And so I took them away, just as you have seen.
51 But Samaria has not committed even half of your sins. For you have exceeded them in your wickedness, and you have justified your sisters by all your abominations, which you have wrought.
52 Therefore, you also bear your shame, for you have exceeded your sisters with your sins, acting more wickedly than they did. So they have been justified above you. By this also, you are confounded, and you bear your disgrace, for you have justified your sisters.
53 But I will convert and restore them, by converting Sodom with her daughters, and by converting Samaria and her daughters. And I will convert your return in their midst.
54 So may you bear your disgrace and be confounded over all that you have done, consoling them.
55 And your sister Sodom and her daughters will return to their ancient state. And Samaria and her daughters will return to their ancient state. And you and your daughters will be returned to your ancient state.
56 Your sister Sodom was not heard from your mouth, then, in the day of your pride,
57 before your malice was revealed, as it is at this time, with the reproach of the daughters of Syria and of all the daughters of Palestine, who surround you, who encircle you on every side.
58 You have borne your wickedness and your disgrace, says the Lord God."
59 For thus says the Lord God: "I will act toward you, just as you have despised the oath, so that you would make void the covenant.
60 And I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth. And I will raise up for you an everlasting covenant.
61 And you shall remember your ways and be confounded, when you will have received your sisters, your elder with your younger. And I will give them to you as daughters, but not by your covenant.
62 And I will raise up my covenant with you. And you shall know that I am the Lord.
63 So may you remember and be confounded. And it will no longer be for you to open your mouth, because of your shame, when I will have been pacified toward you over all that you have done, says the Lord God."
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