Then I will deliver you into the hands of your lovers, and they will level your mounds and tear down your lofty shrines. They will strip off your clothes, take your fine jewelry, and leave you naked and bare.
Parallel translations
- WEB I 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.
- KJV And I will also give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thine eminent place, and shall break down thy high places: they shall strip thee also of thy clothes, and shall take thy fair jewels, and leave thee naked and bare.
- NKJV I will also give you into their hand, and they shall throw down your shrines and break down your high places. They shall also strip you of your clothes, take your beautiful jewelry, and leave you naked and bare.
- NASB I will also hand you over to your lovers, and they will tear down your shrines, demolish your high places, strip you of your clothing, take away your jewels, and will leave you naked and bare.
- NLT Then I will give you to these many nations who are your lovers, and they will destroy you. They will knock down your pagan shrines and the altars to your idols. They will strip you and take your beautiful jewels, leaving you stark naked.
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
God will hand her to her lovers, who will tear down her shrines, strip her, and leave her naked and bare. She returns to the destitution from which grace once raised her.
Overview
The instruments of judgment demolish her idolatrous high places and strip away every gift God had given. The phrase 'naked and bare' deliberately echoes her abandoned infancy (verse 7), showing that forsaking grace returns one to ruin. All she had was God's gift, and in judgment it is removed.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Hos 2:3Otherwise, I will strip her naked and expose her like the day of her birth. I will make her like a desert and turn her into a parched land, and I will let her die of thirst.
- Ezek 23:26They will strip off your clothes and take your fine jewelry.
- Ezek 16:24–25you built yourself a mound and made yourself a lofty shrine in every public square.
- Ezek 16:10–20I clothed you in embroidered cloth and gave you sandals of fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk.
- 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.
- Ezek 7:22–24I will turn My face away from them, and they will defile My treasured place. Violent men will enter it, and they will defile it.
- Isa 27:9Therefore Jacob’s guilt will be atoned for, and the full fruit of the removal of his sin will be this: When he makes all the altar stones like crushed bits of chalk, no Asherah poles or incense altars will remain standing.
- Ezek 23:29They will treat you with hatred, take all for which you have worked, and leave you naked and bare, so that the shame of your prostitution will be exposed. Your indecency and promiscuity
- Isa 3:16–24The LORD also says: “Because the daughters of Zion are haughty—walking with heads held high and wanton eyes, prancing and skipping as they go, jingling the bracelets on their ankles—
- Hos 2:9–13Therefore I will take back My grain in its time and My new wine in its season; I will take away My wool and linen, which were given to cover her nakedness.
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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 16:39 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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