Ezekiel 16

Jerusalem's Unfaithfulness and God's Redeeming Love

9 min read

1 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 is of the land of Canaan; your father was an Amorite, and your mother an Hittite.
4 And as for your nativity, in the day you were born your navel was not cut, neither were you washed in water to supple you; you were not salted at all, nor swaddled at all.
5 None 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 And when I passed by you, and saw you polluted in your own blood, I said to you when you were in your blood, Live; yes, 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 waxen great, and you are come to excellent ornaments: your breasts are fashioned, and your hair is grown, whereas you were naked and bore.
8 Now when I passed by you, and looked on you, behold, your time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over you, and covered your nakedness: yes, I swore to you, and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord GOD, and you became mine.
9 Then washed I you with water; yes, I thoroughly washed away your blood from you, and I anointed you with oil.
10 I clothed you also with broidered work, and shod you with badgers’ skin, and I girded you about with fine linen, and I covered you with silk.
11 I decked you also with ornaments, and I put bracelets on your hands, and a chain on your neck.
12 And I put a jewel on your forehead, and earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown on your head.
13 Thus were you decked with gold and silver; and your raiment was of fine linen, and silk, and broidered work; you did eat fine flour, and honey, and oil: and you were exceeding beautiful, and you did prosper into a kingdom.
14 And your renown went forth among the heathen for your beauty: for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put on you, says the Lord GOD. ¶
15 But you did trust in your own beauty, and played the harlot because of your renown, and poured out your fornications on every one that passed by; his it was.
16 And of your garments you did take, and decked your high places with divers colors, and played the harlot thereupon: the like things shall not come, neither shall it be so.
17 You have also taken your fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made to yourself images of men, and did commit prostitution with them,
18 And took your broidered garments, and covered them: and you have set my oil and my incense before them.
19 My meat also which I gave you, fine flour, and oil, and honey, with which I fed you, you have even set it before them for a sweet smell: 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 have you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Is this of your prostitutions a small matter,
21 That you have slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them?
22 And in all your abominations and your prostitutions you have not remembered the days of your youth, when you were naked and bore, and were polluted in your blood.
23 And it came to pass after all your wickedness, (woe, woe to you! says the LORD GOD;)
24 That you have also built to you an eminent place, and have made you an high place in every street.
25 You have built your high place at every head of the way, and have made your beauty to be abhorred, and have opened your feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied your prostitutions.
26 You have also committed fornication with the Egyptians your neighbors, great of flesh; and have increased your prostitutions, to provoke me to anger.
27 Behold, therefore I have stretched out my hand over you, and have diminished your ordinary food, and delivered you to the will of them that hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, which are ashamed of your lewd way.
28 You have played the whore also with the Assyrians, because you were insatiable; yes, you have played the harlot with them, and yet could not be satisfied.
29 You have moreover multiplied your fornication in the land of Canaan to Chaldea; and yet you were not satisfied therewith.
30 How weak is your heart, says the LORD GOD, seeing you do all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman;
31 In that you build your eminent place in the head of every way, and make your high place in every street; and have not been as an harlot, in that you scorn hire;
32 But as a wife that commits adultery, which takes strangers instead of her husband!
33 They give gifts to all whores: but you give your gifts to all your lovers, and hire them, that they may come to you on every side for your prostitution.
34 And the contrary is in you from other women in your prostitutions, whereas none follows you to commit prostitutions: and in that you give a reward, and no reward is given to you, therefore you are contrary. ¶
35 Why, 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 prostitutions with your lovers, and with all the idols of your abominations, and by the blood of your children, which you did give to them;
37 Behold, therefore I will gather all your lovers, with whom you have taken pleasure, and all them that you have loved, with all them that you have hated; I will even gather them round about against you, and will discover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness.
38 And I will judge you, as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will give you blood in fury and jealousy.
39 And I will also give you into their hand, and they shall throw down your eminent place, 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 bore.
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 And 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 any more.
42 So will I make my fury toward you to rest, and my jealousy shall depart from you, and I will be quiet, and will be no more angry.
43 Because you have not remembered the days of your youth, but have fretted me in all these things; behold, therefore I also will recompense your way on your head, says the Lord GOD: and you shall not commit this lewdness above all your abominations. ¶
44 Behold, every one that uses proverbs shall use this proverb against you, saying, As is the mother, so is her daughter.
45 You are your mother’s daughter, that lothes her husband and her children; and you are the sister of your sisters, which loathed their husbands and their children: your mother was an Hittite, and your father an Amorite.
46 And your elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters that dwell at your left hand: and your younger sister, that dwells at your right hand, is Sodom and her daughters.
47 Yet have you not walked after their ways, nor done after 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 have done, you and your daughters.
49 Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
50 And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.
51 Neither has Samaria committed half of your sins; but you have multiplied your abominations more than they, and have justified your sisters in all your abominations which you have done.
52 You also, which have judged your sisters, bear your own shame for your sins that you have committed more abominable than they: they are more righteous than you: yes, be you confounded also, and bear your shame, in that you have justified your sisters.
53 When I shall bring again their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, then will I bring again the captivity of your captives in the middle of them:
54 That you may bear your own shame, and may be confounded in all that you have done, in that you are a comfort to them.
55 When your sisters, Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former estate, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate, then you and your daughters shall return to your former estate.
56 For your sister Sodom was not mentioned by your mouth in the day of your pride,
57 Before your wickedness was discovered, as at the time of your reproach of the daughters of Syria, and all that are round about her, the daughters of the Philistines, which despise you round about.
58 You have borne your lewdness and your abominations, says the LORD.
59 For thus says the Lord GOD; I will even deal with you as you have done, which have despised the oath in breaking the covenant. ¶
60 Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish to you an everlasting covenant.
61 Then you shall remember your ways, and be ashamed, when you shall receive your sisters, your elder and your younger: and I will give them to you for daughters, but not by your covenant.
62 And I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall know that I am the LORD:
63 That you may remember, and be confounded, and never open your mouth any more because of your shame, when I am pacified toward you for all that you have done, says the Lord GOD.
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