When you built your shrine at the beginning of every street and made your high place in every public square, in spurning a prostitute’s fee, you were not like a prostitute.
Parallel translations
- WEB in 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.
- KJV In that thou buildest thine eminent place in the head of every way, and makest thine high place in every street; and hast not been as an harlot, in that thou scornest hire;
- BSB But 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.
- NKJV “You erected your shrine at the head of every road, and built your high place in every street. Yet you were not like a harlot, because you scorned payment.
- NLT You build your pagan shrines on every street corner and your altars to idols in every square. In fact, you have been worse than a prostitute, so eager for sin that you have not even demanded payment.
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 everywhere yet, unlike a normal prostitute, refused payment. Her harlotry was even more shameless because it sought no gain.
Overview
Ordinary prostitutes act for hire, but Jerusalem 'scorned pay,' pursuing idolatry and foreign alliances purely out of desire. This makes her conduct worse than the comparison: she gave herself away freely. The point is that her sin sprang from sheer love of betrayal, not need.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Isa 52:3For Yahweh says, “You were sold for nothing; and you will be redeemed without money.”
- Ezek 16:33–34People give gifts to all prostitutes; but you give your gifts to all your lovers, and bribe them, that they may come to you on every side for your prostitution.
- Ezek 16:24–25“that you have built for yourselves a vaulted place, and have made yourselves a lofty place in every street.
- 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.
- Hos 12:11If Gilead is wicked, surely they are worthless. In Gilgal they sacrifice bulls. Indeed, their altars are like heaps in the furrows of the field.
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Original language
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