Ezekiel 16
1 Another message from the Lord came to me, saying,
Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
2 “Son of man, challenge Jerusalem over her disgusting practices.
Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations,
3 Tell Jerusalem that this is what the Lord God says to her: You really are a Canaanite, both by your birth and parentage. Your father was an Amorite, and your mother was a Hittite.
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 On the day you were born your cord was not cut, and you weren't washed to clean you up, you weren't rubbed with salt, and you weren't wrapped in cloths.
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 No one looked on you with love to do anything like this for you; no one showed any kind of care for you. No, you were thrown away in a field, abandoned and despised from the day you were born.
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 But I passed by and saw you kicking, covered in your own blood. As you were lying there in your blood I told you, ‘I want you to live!’ I said to you right there, ‘I want you to live!’
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 help you to grow like a plant in the field. You grew up into a beautiful young woman. Your breasts developed and your body hair grew, and you were completely naked.
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 When I passed by again, I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for lovemaking. So I spread my robe over you and covered up your naked body. I committed myself to you and made a solemn agreement with you, and made you mine, declares the Lord God.
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 I washed you with water, cleaned off your blood, and anointed you with oil.
Then washed I you with water; yes, I thoroughly washed away your blood from you, and I anointed you with oil.
10 I put a beautifully embroidered dress on you and gave you fine leather sandals. I clothed you in fine linen and covered you with silk.
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 gave you jewelry—I put bracelets on your wrists and a necklace around your neck.
I decked you also with ornaments, and I put bracelets on your hands, and a chain on your neck.
12 I put a ring in your nose and earrings on your ears, and placed a beautiful crown on your head.
And I put a jewel on your forehead, and earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown on your head.
13 You wore gold and silver jewelry, and your clothes were made of the finest linen, expensive fabric, and embroidered cloth. You ate bread made with the best flour, and honey and olive oil. You grew even more beautiful and became a queen.
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 You were famous around the world because of your beauty, for I used my majestic power to make you so wonderful, declares the Lord God.
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 You were so proud of your beauty that you were unfaithful to me. You thought that because you were so famous you could prostitute yourself and sleep with anyone who passed by. They took your beautiful body for themselves.
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 You made yourself colorful pagan shrines out of the clothes I'd given you, and there you acted as a prostitute. Things like this have never happened before, and they should never happen in the future!
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 also used the beautiful gold and silver jewelry I gave you to make male idols and you prostituted yourself with them.
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 You used your embroidered clothes to dress them, and you placed before them my olive oil and incense.
And took your broidered garments, and covered them: and you have set my oil and my incense before them.
19 You presented the food I had given you as an offering for them to accept —bread made from the best flour, olive oil, and honey that I had provided for you to eat. That's exactly what you did, declares the Lord God.
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 You sacrificed your sons and daughters—the children you had for me—offering them as food for idols to eat. Wasn't your prostitution evil enough?
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 You slaughtered my children, sacrificing them to idols.
That you have slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them?
22 While you were busy with all your disgusting practices and your prostitution, you forgot about the time when you were young, completely naked and lying there kicking in your own blood.
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 Disaster is coming! Disaster is coming on you, declares the Lord God. As well as all the other evil things you did,
And it came to pass after all your wickedness, (woe, woe to you! says the LORD GOD; )
24 you built yourself a pagan shrine, a high place of idol worship on every public square in the city.
That you have also built to you an eminent place, and have made you an high place in every street.
25 You made yourselves high places of idol worship at the top of every street; you degraded yourself, offering your beautiful body to anyone who passed by, opening your legs for them, becoming more and more promiscuous.
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 gave yourself as a prostitute to your Egyptian neighbors with their large sexual organs, making me angry as you became even more promiscuous.
You have also committed fornication with the Egyptians your neighbors, great of flesh; and have increased your prostitutions, to provoke me to anger.
27 So I acted to reduce my blessings to you. I let your enemies the Philistines do what they wanted to you. Even they were embarrassed at your immorality.
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 Because you weren't satisfied you prostituted yourself with the Assyrians. But even then you weren't satisfied.
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 So you took your promiscuous behavior to Babylonia, the country of merchants, but even then you weren't satisfied!
You have moreover multiplied your fornication in the land of Canaan to Chaldea; and yet you were not satisfied therewith.
30 You're really sick-minded to do all this, acting like a prostitute with no shame, declares the Lord God.
How weak is your heart, says the LORD GOD, seeing you do all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman;
31 Actually you weren't even a normal prostitute when you built yourselves pagan shrines at the top of every street and high places of idol worship on every public square—because you refused to be paid for your services!
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 You're a wife that loves adultery! You sleep with strangers instead of your husband!
But as a wife that commits adultery, which takes strangers instead of her husband!
33 Normally all prostitutes are paid, but you were the one giving gifts to all your lovers. You even bribed them to come from all around and have sex with you.
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 So you're the opposite of other prostitutes. No one comes to you asking for sex, and you pay the prostitute's fee instead of receiving it. You're the exact opposite!
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 So, you prostitute, listen to the message from the Lord!
Why, O harlot, hear the word of the LORD:
36 This is what the Lord God says: Because you were so crazy with desire you stripped yourself naked and committed adultery with your lovers and with all your disgusting idols, and because you killed your children as sacrifices to those idols,
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 I'm going to bring together all the lovers you went to bed with, whether you loved them or hated them, and I will have them gather from everywhere around and I will strip you as they watch so they will see you totally naked.
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 I will impose on you the punishment for women who commit adultery and those who murder; you will be punished in passionate anger.
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 Then I will hand you over to your lovers, and they will demolish your pagan shrines and destroy your high places of idol worship. They will strip you of your clothes, remove your beautiful jewelry, and leave you stark naked.
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 will come with a mob to attack you. They will stone you and chop you into pieces with their swords.
They shall also bring up a company against you, and they shall stone you with stones, and thrust you through with their swords.
41 They will burn down your houses and punish you while many women watch. I will stop your prostitution, and you won't ever pay your lovers again.
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 Then I will finish being jealous and furious with you. I will calm down and won't be angry any more.
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 Since you didn't remember how I looked after you when you were young, but made me angry with all the things that you did, I will make sure you experience the results of what you've done, declares the Lord God. For this immorality was in addition to all the other disgusting things you did, wasn't it?
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 Everyone who likes to use proverbs will quote this one about you: ‘Like mother, like daughter.’
Behold, every one that uses proverbs shall use this proverb against you, saying, As is the mother, so is her daughter.
45 You are the daughter of your mother who detested her husband and children. You are just like her! You are the sister of your sisters, just like them who detested their husbands and children. In fact your mother was a Hittite and your father was an Amorite.
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 Your older sister was Samaria, who lived north of you with her daughters. Your younger sister was Sodom, who lived south of you with her daughters.
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 You didn't just follow their ways and do the same disgusting things they did, you very quickly became even worse than them.
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, declares the Lord God, your sister Sodom and her daughters didn't ever do what you and your daughters have done.
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 The sins of your sister Sodom were these: She and her daughters were proud, greedy, and lazy. They didn't help the poor and those in need.
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 They became arrogant and did disgusting things in my presence. So I got rid of them when I saw this.
And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.
51 Samaria didn't sin half as badly as you did. You have done far more disgusting things than they did. In fact, all the revolting things you've done make your sisters look good!
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 Now you're going to have to put up with your shame, since by your disgraceful sins you made them seem far better. Compared to you they look good! Now you too have to put up with your shame and disgrace because you've made your sisters look as if they were good.
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 Even so I'm going to bring Sodom and her daughters back from exile, and Samaria and her daughters too. I will bring you back together with them.
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 In this way you will have to put up with your disgrace and be ashamed of all the bad things you did that made them feel better about themselves.
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 Your sisters, Sodom with her daughters and Samaria with her daughters, will be restored to what they were before. You and your daughters will also be restored to what you were before.
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 Didn't you mock your sister Sodom when you were feeling proud,
For your sister Sodom was not mentioned by your mouth in the day of your pride,
57 before you were shown to be so wicked yourselves? Of course now you are mocked by the Edomites and the surrounding nations, as well as by the Philistines. Everyone around you looks down on you.
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 will have to experience the consequences of your immorality and your disgusting practices, declares the Lord.
You have borne your lewdness and your abominations, says the LORD.
59 This is what the Lord God says: I'm going to punish you according to your sins, because you treated the promise you made with contempt by breaking the agreement.
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 But I won't forget the agreement I made with you when you were young, and I will make an everlasting agreement with you.
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 will remember the way you are meant to live and be ashamed when you meet your older and younger sisters when they return to you. I will give them to you as daughters, even though this was not part of our original agreement.
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 This is how I will endorse my agreement with you, and you will know that I am the Lord,
And I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall know that I am the LORD:
63 so that you will remember and be ashamed, and won't ever defend your disgraceful behavior when I forgive you for everything you've done, declares the Lord God.”
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.
