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.
Parallel translations
- 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.
- BSB 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.
- 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 the king with oil, and increased your perfumes, and sent your ambassadors far off, and degraded yourself even to Sheol.
- Hos 8:9–10For they have gone up to Assyria, like a wild donkey wandering alone. Ephraim has hired lovers for himself.
- Hos 2:12I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, about which she has said, ‘These are my wages that my lovers have given me; and I will make them a forest,’ and the animals of the field shall eat them.
- Deut 23:17–18There shall be no prostitute of the daughters of Israel, neither shall there be a sodomite of the sons of Israel.
- Joel 3:3and have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for a prostitute, and sold a girl for wine, that they may drink.
- Isa 30:6–7The burden of the animals of the South. Through the land of trouble and anguish, of the lioness and the lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they carry their riches on the shoulders of young donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to an unprofitable people.
- Isa 30:3Therefore the strength of Pharaoh will be your shame, and the refuge in the shadow of Egypt your confusion.
- Mic 1:7All her idols will be beaten to pieces, and all her temple gifts will be burned with fire, and all her images I will destroy; for of the hire of a prostitute has she gathered them, and to the hire of a prostitute shall they return.”
- Ezek 16:41They will burn your houses with fire, and execute judgments on you in the sight of many women. I will cause you to cease from playing the prostitute, and you will also give no hire any more.
- Luke 15:30But when this, your son, came, who has devoured your living with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.’
- Gen 38:16–18He turned to her by the way, and said, “Please come, let me come in to you,” for he didn’t know that she was his daughter-in-law. She said, “What will you give me, that you may come in to me?”
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Original language
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