You prostituted yourself with your lustful neighbors, the Egyptians, and increased your promiscuity to provoke Me to anger.
Parallel translations
- WEB You have also committed sexual immorality with the Egyptians, your neighbors, great of flesh; and have multiplied your prostitution, to provoke me to anger.
- KJV Thou hast also committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours, great of flesh; and hast increased thy whoredoms, to provoke me to anger.
- NKJV You also committed harlotry with the Egyptians, your very fleshly neighbors, and increased your acts of harlotry to provoke Me to anger.
- NASB You also committed prostitution with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, and multiplied your obscene practice to provoke Me to anger.
- NLT Then you added lustful Egypt to your lovers, provoking my anger with your increasing promiscuity.
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 committed harlotry with Egypt, provoking God to anger. Reliance on pagan powers was spiritual adultery.
Overview
Israel's political and religious entanglement with Egypt is portrayed as adultery (compare Isaiah 30-31). Trusting Egypt's might instead of the LORD provoked Him to jealousy. The verse shows that misplaced trust in worldly power, not only formal idol worship, is a betrayal of God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Ezek 23:19–21Yet she multiplied her promiscuity, remembering the days of her youth, when she had prostituted herself in the land of Egypt
- Ezek 20:7–8And I said to them: ‘Each of you must throw away the abominations before his eyes, and you must not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.’
- Exod 32:4He took the gold from their hands, and with an engraving tool he fashioned it into a molten calf. And they said, “These, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”
- Josh 24:14Now, therefore, fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth; cast aside the gods your fathers served beyond the Euphrates and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.
- Ezek 8:17“Son of man,” He said to me, “do you see this? Is it not enough for the house of Judah to commit the abominations they are practicing here, that they must also fill the land with violence and continually provoke Me to anger? Look, they are even putting the branch to their nose!
- Deut 29:16–17For you yourselves know how we lived in the land of Egypt and how we passed through the nations on the way here.
- Ezek 23:3and they played in Egypt, prostituting themselves from their youth. Their breasts were fondled there, and their virgin bosoms caressed.
- Jer 7:18–19The sons gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven; they pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke Me to anger.
- Isa 30:21And whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: “This is the way. Walk in it.”
- Ezek 23:8She did not give up the prostitution she began in Egypt, when men slept with her in her youth, caressed her virgin bosom, and poured out their lust upon her.
- Ezek 8:14Then He brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the LORD, and I saw women sitting there, weeping for Tammuz.
- Ezek 8:10So I went in and looked, and engraved all around the wall was every kind of crawling creature and detestable beast, along with all the idols of the house of Israel.
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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 16:26 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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