Jerusalem, the Adulterous Wife

¹The word of the Lord came to me: ²O mortal, proclaim Jerusalem’s abominations to her, ³and say: Thus said the Lord God to Jerusalem: By origin and birth you are from the land of the Canaanites—your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. ⁴As for your birth, when you were born your navel cord was not cut, and you were not bathed in water to smooth you; you were not rubbed with salt, nor were you swaddled. ⁵No one pitied you enough to do any one of these things for you out of compassion for you; on the day you were born, you were left lying, rejected, in the open field. ⁶When I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you: “Live in spite of your blood.” ^aYea, I said to you: “Live in spite of your blood.” ^a7I let you grow like the plants of the field; and you continued to grow up until you attained to womanhood, until your breasts became firm and your hair sprouted.

You were still naked and bare ⁸when I passed by you [again] and saw that your time for love had arrived. ^bSo I spread My robe over you^band covered your nakedness, and I entered into a covenant with you by oath—declares the Lord God; thus you became Mine. ⁹I bathed you in water, and washed the blood off you, and anointed you with oil. ¹⁰I clothed you with embroidered garments, and gave you sandals of dolphin leather to wear, and wound fine linen about your head, and dressed you in silks. ¹¹I decked you out in finery and put bracelets on your arms and a chain around your neck. ¹²I put a ring in your nose, and earrings in your ears, and a splendid crown on your head. ¹³You adorned yourself with gold and silver, and your apparel was of fine linen, silk, and embroidery. Your food was choice flour, honey, and oil. You grew more and more beautiful, and became fit for royalty. ¹⁴Your beauty won you fame among the nations, for it was perfected through the splendor which I set upon you—declares the Lord God.

¹⁵But confident in your beauty and fame, you played the harlot: you lavished your favors on every passerby; they were his. ¹⁶You even took some of your cloths and made yourself tapestried platforms and fornicated on them—not in the future; not in time to come. ¹⁷You took your beautiful things, made of the gold and silver that I had given you, and you made yourself phallic images and fornicated with them. ¹⁸You took your embroidered cloths to cover them; and you set My oil and My incense before them. ¹⁹The food that I had given you—the choice flour, the oil, and the honey, which I had provided for you to eat—you set it before them for a pleasing odor.^c And so it went—declares the Lord God. ²⁰You even took the sons and daughters that you bore to Me and sacrificed them to those [images] as food—as if your harlotries were not enough, ²¹you slaughtered My children and presented them as offerings to them! ²²In all your abominations and harlotries, you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, and lay wallowing in your blood.

²³After all your wickedness (woe, woe to you!)—declares the Lord God—²⁴you built yourself an eminence and made yourself a mound in every square. ²⁵You built your mound at every crossroad; and you sullied your beauty and spread your legs to every passerby, and you multiplied your harlotries. ²⁶You played the whore with your neighbors, the lustful Egyptians—you multiplied your harlotries to anger Me. ²⁷Now, I will stretch out My arm against you and withhold your maintenance; and I will surrender you to the will of your enemies, the Philistine women, who are shocked by your lewd behavior.

²⁸In your insatiable lust you also played the whore with the Assyrians; you played the whore with them, but were still unsated. ²⁹You multiplied your harlotries with Chaldea, that land of traders; yet even with this you were not satisfied.

^30dHow sick was your heart^d—declares the Lord God—when you did all those things, the acts of a self-willed whore, ³¹building your eminence at every crossroad and setting your mound in every square! Yet you were not like a prostitute, for you spurned fees; ³²[you were like] the adulterous wife who welcomes strangers instead of her husband. ³³Gifts are made to all prostitutes, but you made gifts to all your lovers, and bribed them to come to you from every quarter for your harlotries. ³⁴You were the opposite of other women: you solicited instead of being solicited; you paid fees instead of being paid fees. Thus you were just the opposite!

³⁵Now, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord. ³⁶Thus said the Lord God: Because of your brazen effrontery, offering your nakedness to your lovers for harlotry—just like the blood of your children, which you gave to all your abominable fetishes:—³⁷I will assuredly assemble all the lovers to whom you gave your favors, along with everybody you accepted and everybody you rejected. I will assemble them against you from every quarter, and I will expose your nakedness to them, and they shall see all your nakedness. ³⁸I will inflict upon you the punishment of women who commit adultery and murder, and I will direct bloody and impassioned fury against you. ³⁹I will deliver you into their hands, and they shall tear down your eminence and level your mounds; and they shall strip you of your clothing and take away your dazzling jewels, leaving you naked and bare. ⁴⁰Then they shall assemble a mob against you to pelt you with stones and pierce you with their swords. ⁴¹They shall put your houses to the flames and execute punishment upon you in the sight of many women; thus I will put a stop to your harlotry, and you shall pay no more fees. ⁴²When I have satisfied My fury upon you and My rage has departed from you, then I will be tranquil; I will be angry no more.

⁴³Because you did not remember the days of your youth, but infuriated Me with all those things, I will pay you back for your conduct—declares the Lord God.