Ezekiel 16:15-52
“ But you trusted in your beauty and became unfaithful because of your fame, and you poured out your obscene practices on every passer by to whom it might be tempting.You took some of your clothes, made for yourself high places of various colors, and committed prostitution on them, which should not come about nor happen.You also took your beautiful jewels made of My gold and of My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself male images so that you might commit prostitution with them.Then you took your colorfully woven cloth and covered them, and offered My oil and My incense before them.Also My bread which I gave you, fine flour, oil, and honey with which I fed you, you would offer before them for a soothing aroma; so it happened,” declares the Lord God.“ Furthermore, you took your sons and daughters whom you had borne to Me and sacrificed them to idols to be devoured. Were your obscene practices a trivial matter?You slaughtered My children and offered them to idols by making them pass through the fire.And besides all your abominations and obscene practices, you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare and squirming in your blood.“ Then it came about after all your wickedness(‘ Woe, woe to you!’ declares the Lord God),that you built yourself a shrine and made yourself a high place in every public square.You built yourself a high place at the beginning of every street and made your beauty abominable, and you spread your legs to every passer by and multiplied your obscene practice.You also committed prostitution with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, and multiplied your obscene practice to provoke Me to anger.So behold, I have stretched out My hand against you and cut back your rations. And I turned you over to the desire of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who are ashamed of your outrageous conduct.Moreover, you committed prostitution with the Assyrians because you were not satisfied; you committed prostitution with them and still were not satisfied.You also multiplied your obscene practice with the land of merchants, Chaldea; yet even with this you were not satisfied.” ’ ”“ How feverish is your heart,” declares the Lord God,“ while you do all these things, the action of a bold prostitute!When you built your shrine at the beginning of every street and made your high place in every public square, in spurning a prostitute’s fee, you were not like a prostitute.You adulteress wife, who takes strangers instead of her husband!Men give gifts to all prostitutes, but you give your gifts to all your lovers and lavish favors on them so that they will come to you from every direction for your obscene practices.So it is the opposite for you from those women in your obscene practices, in that you are not approached for prostitution, and in the fact that you pay a prostitute’s fee, and no fee is paid to you; so you are the opposite.”Therefore, you prostitute, hear the word of the Lord.This is what the Lord God says:“ Because your lewdness was poured out and your nakedness uncovered through your obscene practices with your lovers and with all your detestable idols, and because of the blood of your sons that you gave to idols,therefore, behold, I am going to gather all your lovers whom you pleased, all those whom you loved as well as all those whom you hated. So I will gather them against you from every direction and expose your nakedness to them so that they may see all your nakedness.So I will judge you as women who commit adultery or shed blood are judged; and I will bring on you the blood of wrath and jealousy.I will also hand you over to your lovers, and they will tear down your shrines, demolish your high places, strip you of your clothing, take away your jewels, and will leave you naked and bare.They will incite a crowd against you, and they will stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords.And they will burn your houses with fire and execute judgments against you in the sight of many women. Then I will put an end to your prostitution, and you will also no longer pay your lovers.So I will satisfy My fury against you and My jealousy will leave you, and I will be pacified and no longer be angry.Since you have not remembered the days of your youth but have caused Me unrest by all these things, behold, I in turn will bring your conduct down on your own head,” declares the Lord God,“ so that you will not commit this outrageous sin in addition to all your other abominations.“ Behold, everyone who quotes proverbs will quote this proverb about you, saying,‘ Like mother, like daughter.’You are the daughter of your mother, who loathed her husband and children. You are also the sister of your sisters, who loathed their husbands and children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite.Now your older sister is Samaria, who lives north of you with her daughters; and your younger sister, who lives south of you, is Sodom with her daughters.Yet you have not merely walked in their ways and committed their abominations; but, as if that were too little, you also acted more corruptly in all your conduct than they.As I live,” declares the Lord God,“ Sodom, your sister and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done!Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, plenty of food, and carefree ease, but she did not help the poor and needy.So they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I removed them when I saw it.Furthermore, Samaria did not commit half of your sins, for you have multiplied your abominations more than they. So you have made your sisters appear innocent by all your abominations which you have committed.Also, bear your disgrace in that you have made judgment favorable for your sisters. Because of your sins in which you acted more abominably than they, they are more in the right than you. Yes, be also ashamed and bear your disgrace, in that you made your sisters appear innocent.
