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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.
Ezekiel 16:39 · New King James Version
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.
  • BSB 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.
  • 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 2:3Lest I strip her naked, and make her bare as in the day that she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst.
  • Ezek 23:26They will also strip you of your clothes, and take away your beautiful jewels.
  • Ezek 16:24–25“that you have built for yourselves a vaulted place, and have made yourselves a lofty place in every street.
  • Ezek 16:10–20I clothed you also with embroidered work, and put sealskin shoes on you. I dressed you with fine linen and covered you with silk.
  • Ezek 16:31in 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.
  • Ezek 7:22–24I will also turn my face from them, and they will profane my secret place. Robbers will enter into it, and profane it.
  • Isa 27:9Therefore by this the iniquity of Jacob will be forgiven, and this is all the fruit of taking away his sin: that he makes all the stones of the altar as chalk stones that are beaten in pieces, so that the Asherah poles and the incense altars shall rise no more.
  • Ezek 23:29They will deal with you in hatred, and will take away all your labor, and shall leave you naked and bare. The nakedness of your prostitution will be uncovered, both your lewdness and your prostitution.
  • Isa 3:16–24Moreover Yahweh said, “Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with outstretched necks and flirting eyes, walking to trip as they go, jingling ornaments on their feet;
  • Hos 2:9–13Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my new wine in its season, and will pluck away my wool and my flax which should have covered her nakedness.

Themes, concepts, people & topics

Topics (2)

Resources, by level

Commentaries & study tools

  • VideoBibleProject — Ezekiel videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.

  • VideoWatch teaching on Ezekiel 16:39YouTube · Lay · Free

    Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.

  • CommentaryEnduring Word — verse-by-verseDavid Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.

  • CommentaryClassic commentaries for this verseBibleHub (20+ works) · Pastoral · Free

    Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.

  • CommentaryMatthew Henry on EzekielMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical

    The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).

  • ReferenceInterlinear, lexicon & Strong'sBlue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free

    Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.

Christ at the center

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

Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.