Men give gifts to all their prostitutes, but you gave gifts to all your lovers. You bribed them to come to you from everywhere for your illicit favors.
Parallel translations
- WEB People 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.
- KJV They give gifts to all whores: but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them, that they may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredom.
- NKJV Men make payment to all harlots, but you made your payments to all your lovers, and hired them to come to you from all around for your harlotry.
- NASB Men give gifts to all prostitutes, but you give your gifts to all your lovers and lavish favors on them so that they will come to you from every direction for your obscene practices.
- NLT Prostitutes charge for their services—but not you! You give gifts to your lovers, bribing them to come and have sex with you.
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
Reversing custom, she pays her lovers and bribes the nations to come to her. She spends her resources to purchase her own betrayal.
Overview
Most prostitutes receive gifts, but Jerusalem lavishes them on her lovers, paying tribute to foreign nations and their gods to court their favor. She squanders God's gifts to fund her unfaithfulness. The picture exposes the irrational, self-impoverishing nature of sin, which pays dearly for its own degradation.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Isa 57:9You went to Molech with oil and multiplied your perfumes. You have sent your envoys a great distance; you have descended even to Sheol itself.
- Hos 8:9–10For they have gone up to Assyria like a wild donkey on its own. Ephraim has hired lovers.
- Hos 2:12I will destroy her vines and fig trees, which she thinks are the wages paid by her lovers. So I will make them into a thicket, and the beasts of the field will devour them.
- Deut 23:17–18No daughter or son of Israel is to be a shrine prostitute.
- Joel 3:3They cast lots for My people; they bartered a boy for a prostitute and sold a girl for wine to drink.
- Isa 30:6–7This is the burden against the beasts of the Negev: Through a land of hardship and distress, of lioness and lion, of viper and flying serpent, they carry their wealth on the backs of donkeys and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people of no profit to them.
- Isa 30:3But Pharaoh’s protection will become your shame, and the refuge of Egypt’s shade your disgrace.
- Mic 1:7All her carved images will be smashed to pieces; all her wages will be burned in the fire, and I will destroy all her idols. Since she collected the wages of a prostitute, they will be used again on a prostitute.
- Ezek 16:41Then they will burn down your houses and execute judgment against you in the sight of many women. I will put an end to your prostitution, and you will never again pay your lovers.
- Luke 15:30But when this son of yours returns from squandering your wealth with prostitutes, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
- Gen 38:16–18Not realizing that she was his daughter-in-law, he went over to her and said, “Come now, let me sleep with you.” “What will you give me for sleeping with you?” she inquired.
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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 16:33 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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