“that you have built for yourselves a vaulted place, and have made yourselves a lofty place in every street.
Parallel translations
- KJV That thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place, and hast made thee an high place in every street.
- BSB you built yourself a mound and made yourself a lofty shrine in every public square.
- NKJV that you also built for yourself a shrine, and made a high place for yourself in every street.
- NASB that you built yourself a shrine and made yourself a high place in every public square.
- NLT you built a pagan shrine and put altars to idols in every town square.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
She built shrines and high places throughout the city for her idolatry. Her sin was public, organized, and pervasive.
Overview
The 'vaulted place' and 'lofty place' picture cultic platforms for pagan worship erected on every street. Idolatry was not hidden but brazen and citywide. The imagery prepares for the next charge: her readiness to prostitute herself to every passing nation.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Ps 78:58For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images.
- Jer 2:20“For long ago I broke off your yoke, and burst your bonds. You said, ‘I will not serve;’ for on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed yourself, playing the prostitute.
- Isa 57:7On a high and lofty mountain you have set your bed. You also went up there to offer sacrifice.
- Ezek 16:39I will also give you into their hand, and they will throw down your vaulted place, and break down your lofty places; and they will strip you of your clothes, and take your beautiful jewels. They will leave you naked and bare.
- Ezek 16:31in that you build your vaulted place at the head of every way, and make your lofty place in every street, and have not been as a prostitute, in that you scorn pay.
- Jer 3:2“Lift up your eyes to the bare heights, and see! Where have you not been lain with? You have sat waiting for them by the road, as an Arabian in the wilderness. You have polluted the land with your prostitution and with your wickedness.
- Ezek 20:28–29For when I had brought them into the land, which I swore to give to them, then they saw every high hill, and every thick tree, and they offered there their sacrifices, and there they presented the provocation of their offering; there also they made their pleasant aroma, and they poured out there their drink offerings.
- Jer 17:3My mountain in the field, I will give your substance and all your treasures for a plunder, and your high places, because of sin, throughout all your borders.
- 2 Kgs 21:3–7For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he raised up altars for Baal, and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel did, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served them.
- Lev 26:30I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you.
- Isa 57:5you who inflame yourselves among the oaks, under every green tree; who kill the children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks?
- 2 Kgs 23:11–12He took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entrance of Yahweh’s house, by the room of Nathan Melech the officer, who was in the court; and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire.
- 2 Kgs 23:5–7He got rid of the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places around Jerusalem; those also who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the army of the sky.
- 2 Chr 33:3–7For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down; and he raised up altars for the Baals, made Asheroth, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served them.
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The promise of one Shepherd-King David, a new heart and new Spirit, and the river of life flowing from the temple all stream toward Christ, the good Shepherd who gives the Spirit.
How Ezekiel 16:24 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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