Ezekiel 16:1-63

YAHWEH spoke again to me, saying, “Son of man, confront Jerusalem concerning all the despicable things they have done. Tell them, ‘Lord YAHWEH says to you: Your ancestral origins were in the land where the Canaanites lived. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. On the day you were born, there was no one there to cut your umbilical cord or wash you clean in water. There was no one there to rub you with salt and oil or wrap you in a baby blanket. No one did anything to help you. No one felt sorry for you or showed sympathy for you. Instead, you were dumped into an open field and forgotten. From the day you were born you were rejected and unloved.’ ” “ ‘Then I passed by, and I saw you there squirming in your blood. And as you lay there covered with blood, I spoke over you: “Live!” And I made you grow and flourish like the grass of the fields. You grew up and developed until you produced the most beautiful of features. You developed the breasts and hair of a young woman, but you were still quite naked and exposed. Then later, I passed by again and looked upon you. And behold, I saw that your time had come—you were now old enough for love. So, I spread the edge of my robe over you and covered your nakedness. I gave you my sacred oath. I, Lord YAHWEH, made a divine covenant with you, saying, “You will be mine,” and I took you as my own and promised to care for you. Then I washed the blood off you and anointed you with fragrant oil. I dressed you in beautiful, embroidered gowns, fine leather shoes, a fine linen headband, and wrapped you in rich fabric. I adorned you with jewels, beautiful bracelets, and necklaces. I gave you a nose ring and earrings and placed a sparkling crown on your head. You were decked with gold and silver jewelry and dressed in luxurious linen and rich embroidered cloth. Your meals were feasts, made with the best bread, honey, and oil. You grew more and more beautiful, and you rose to be queen. And you became famous throughout the world because the splendor I lavished on you made your beauty perfect, declares Lord YAHWEH.’ ” “ ‘But you became confident in your own beauty and used your fame to act like a prostitute. You offered your sexual favors to each one who came along—and you became his! You took some of your fine clothes to decorate the tents on the high places where you worked as a prostitute. You also took your gold and silver jewelry, which I had given you, and made yourself male images and acted like a prostitute with them. You took your embroidered clothes and used these to dress them up, and you offered them my sacred oil and my sacred incense. I gave you food made with the best flour, olive oil, and honey. But you offered it as a fragrant incense to these idols. I, Lord YAHWEH, declare: that is exactly what you did! You even took the sons and daughters I had given you and sacrificed them as food for the idols. As if your prostitution was not bad enough, you slaughtered my children and burned them as offerings to idols! While you were doing the things I hate and behaving like a prostitute, you entirely forgot how you were when you were young. I found you naked and exposed, squirming in your own blood. “ ‘Now I, Lord YAHWEH, say you are doomed! Not only did you do these evil things, in every city square you built an elevated shrine for the worship of idols. At the entry to every alley you put up your brothel and dragged your beauty through the mud. You spread your legs to all who passed by in countless acts of prostitution. You slept with your well-endowed neighbors, the Egyptians, provoking my anger with your lifestyle of a prostitute. So listen, I have taken action to punish you and remove your portion of my blessing. I have put you at the mercy of your enemies, the Philistine women, who blushed over your lewd behavior. Still unsatisfied, you prostituted yourself to the Assyrians and played the harlot with them. But even then, you were not satisfied. You committed further acts of fornication with the Babylonians, that nation of merchants, but that still did not satisfy you.’ ” “ ‘I, Lord YAHWEH, say: You make me extremely angry because of all these things that you have done. You have acted like a brazen prostitute who has no shame. You built an elevated shrine on every street to worship idols, put up your pavilion in every public square. But you are not like a common prostitute just out for the money. You are an adulterous wife who would rather have sex with strangers than her husband. Men will pay a prostitute, but you give presents to all your lovers! You bribe them to come from everywhere just to sleep with you. You are so different from other prostitutes. No one came to ask you for sex. The men you slept with did not pay you, but you paid them. Therefore, you are worse than a prostitute!’ ” “ ‘Very well, Jerusalem, you whore! Hear the word of YAHWEH! Lord YAHWEH says to you: You poured out your lust and are ready for sex. As a prostitute, you uncovered your genitals for your lovers and for all those disgusting idols. You killed your children to honor those false gods. “ ‘Behold, I will bring together all your lovers to whom you gave pleasure—all those you loved and all those you hated. Yes, I will bring them from everywhere, and I will strip you naked in front of them and let them see your genitals. “ ‘I will judge you with the same death sentence of an adulterer or murderer and bring upon you the fury of my burning rage. I will hand you over to your “lovers,” and they will destroy your elevated chamber and pull down your sacred shrines. They will strip you of your clothes, take away your lovely jewels, and leave you stark naked. Then they will gather an angry mob against you who will stone you to death and hack you to pieces with their swords. They will burn down your homes and execute justice on you while many other women look on. I will once and for all put an end to your wicked harlotry—no more paid lovers for you! “ ‘Once my fury is exhausted with you, I will calm down and let my anger die away. Then I will not be angry anymore. You have entirely forgotten how I treated you when you were young. And you have done nothing but provoke me, so now I, in turn, will cause you to suffer the consequences for your own behavior. And haven’t you committed such gross lewdness in addition to all your other shocking sins? I, Lord YAHWEH, have spoken.’ ” YAHWEH says, “Behold, all who quote proverbs will surely apply this proverb to you, Jerusalem: Like mother, like daughter. Yes; you are a daughter exactly like your pagan mother, who hated her husband and her children. And you have become exactly like your sisters, who hated their husbands and their children. You and your sister cities had a Hittite mother and an Amorite father. Your big sister is Samaria with her daughter-villages to the north of you. Your little sister is Sodom with her daughter-villages to the south of you. Yet you were not satisfied to live as the people of Samaria and Sodom lived, copying all their wicked ways and imitating their loathsome practices. In very little time, you became more wicked than they were in all your ways. As surely as I, Lord YAHWEH, live, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did the evil that you and your daughters have done. Behold, the guilt of your sister Sodom! She and her daughters were arrogant, gluttonous, and lived in carefree complacency. They never thought to help the poor and needy. They were proud, stubborn, and defiantly evil before me, and so I swept them away as you have seen. And yet Samaria never committed half the sins that you have. You have done more detestable things than they. When compared to all your gross practices, you have made your sisters seem innocent! So now you will bear the shame of your deeds, which provides a measure of justification for your sisters, since your sins are viler than theirs. They now appear more upright than you are. So, suffer the utter disgrace and humiliation of having made your sisters appear more righteous than you! “I will restore their fortunes; I will restore Sodom and her daughters. I will restore Samaria and her daughters, and then I will also restore your fortunes along with them. You will be totally ashamed of yourself and bear disgrace for all you have done in giving them comfort. When your sisters, Sodom and her daughter-villages and Samaria and her daughter-villages, are restored to what they were, then you, too, and your surrounding villages will be restored to what you were. Jerusalem, did you not gloat in your pride over your sister Sodom before your wickedness was uncovered? Now you are just like her! You have become the laughingstock of the Philistines, the Syrians, and all your neighbors who hate you and heap scorn on you. You have brought this on yourself with your lewdness and your disgusting deeds. I, Lord YAHWEH, have spoken.” “For I, Lord YAHWEH say to you: I will treat you as you deserve, for you have broken your marriage covenant and despised your promises to me. But I will remember my covenant that I made with you in the days of your youth. I will renew that covenant with you, and it will last forever. When you get back your older and younger sisters, then you will remember your ways and feel ashamed. I will make them like daughters to you, but not on the basis of my new covenant with you. Yes, I will graciously renew my covenant with you, and then you will know me as YAHWEH-God. You may remember your wretched past and feel deep remorse, yet you will be reduced to silence when you realize that I have forgiven you for everything you have done. I, Lord YAHWEH, have spoken.”