At the head of every street you built your lofty shrines and degraded your beauty. With increasing promiscuity, you spread your legs to all who passed by.
Parallel translations
- WEB You have built your lofty place at the head of every way, and have made your beauty an abomination, and have opened your feet to everyone who passed by, and multiplied your prostitution.
- KJV Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms.
- NKJV You built your high places at the head of every road, and made your beauty to be abhorred. You offered yourself to everyone who passed by, and multiplied your acts of harlotry.
- NASB You built yourself a high place at the beginning of every street and made your beauty abominable, and you spread your legs to every passer-by and multiplied your obscene practice.
- NLT On every street corner you defiled your beauty, offering your body to every passerby in an endless stream of prostitution.
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 set up shrines at every crossroad and offered herself to all who passed by. Her unfaithfulness became utterly shameless.
Overview
The harlotry imagery intensifies: Jerusalem made her beauty 'an abomination,' soliciting every passerby. Historically this points to her eager alliances and idol-borrowing from surrounding nations. The relentless multiplication of her sin shows an appetite for betrayal that knew no restraint.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Jer 3:2“Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been violated? You sat beside the highways waiting for your lovers, like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness.
- Ezek 16:31But when you built your mounds at the head of every street and made your lofty shrines in every public square, you were not even like a prostitute, because you scorned payment.
- Rev 17:1–5Then one of the seven angels with the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits on many waters.
- Ezek 16:15But because of your fame, you trusted in your beauty and played the harlot. You lavished your favors on everyone who passed by, and your beauty was theirs for the asking.
- Jer 2:23–24“How can you say, ‘I am not defiled; I have not run after the Baals’? Look at your behavior in the valley; acknowledge what you have done. You are a swift young she-camel galloping here and there,
- Jer 6:15Are they ashamed of the abomination they have committed? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; when I punish them, they will collapse,” says the LORD.
- Ezek 23:32This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘You will drink your sister’s cup, a cup deep and wide. It will bring scorn and derision, for it holds so much.
- Isa 3:9The expression on their faces testifies against them, and like Sodom they flaunt their sin; they do not conceal it. Woe to them, for they have brought disaster upon themselves.
- Ezek 23:9–10Therefore I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, the Assyrians for whom she lusted.
- Prov 9:14–15She sits at the door of her house, on a seat in the heights of the city,
- Rev 17:12–13The ten horns you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but will receive one hour of authority as kings, along with the beast.
- Gen 38:14she removed her widow’s garments, covered her face with a veil to disguise herself, and sat at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the way to Timnah. For she saw that although Shelah had grown up, she had not been given to him as a wife.
- Rev 17:16And the ten horns and the beast that you saw will hate the prostitute. They will leave her desolate and naked, and will eat her flesh and burn her with fire.
- Gen 38:21He asked the men of that place, “Where is the shrine prostitute who was beside the road at Enaim?” “No shrine prostitute has been here,” they answered.
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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 16:25 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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