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Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed, when you receive your sisters, your elder sisters and your younger; and I will give them to you for daughters, but not by your covenant.
Ezekiel 16:61 · World English Bible
Parallel translations
  • KJV Then thou shalt remember thy ways, and be ashamed, when thou shalt receive thy sisters, thine elder and thy younger: and I will give them unto thee for daughters, but not by thy covenant.
  • BSB Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you receive your older and younger sisters. I will give them to you as daughters, but not because of My covenant with you.
  • NKJV Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed, when you receive your older and your younger sisters; for I will give them to you for daughters, but not because of My covenant with you.
  • NASB Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you receive your sisters, both your older and your younger; and I will give them to you as daughters, but not because of your covenant.
  • NLT Then you will remember with shame all the evil you have done. I will make your sisters, Samaria and Sodom, to be your daughters, even though they are not part of our covenant.

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

When restored, Jerusalem will remember her ways with shame and receive her sisters as daughters, not by her own merit. Grace produces humility and enlarges God's family.

Overview

God foretells that Jerusalem will be both ashamed and enlarged, receiving Samaria and Sodom as daughters. This expansion 'but not by your covenant' shows it flows from God's grace, not Israel's deserving. It hints at the gospel mystery of Gentiles brought into the covenant family in Christ.

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 26

  • Gal 4:26–31But the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
  • Heb 8:13In that he says, “A new covenant”, he has made the first old. But that which is becoming old and grows aged is near to vanishing away.
  • Jer 50:4–5“In those days, and in that time,” says Yahweh, “the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together; they will go on their way weeping, and will seek Yahweh their God.
  • Rom 15:16that I should be a servant of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, serving as a priest of the Good News of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be made acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
  • Rom 11:11I ask then, did they stumble that they might fall? May it never be! But by their fall salvation has come to the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy.
  • Ezek 20:43There you shall remember your ways, and all your doings, in which you have polluted yourselves; and you shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that you have committed.
  • Isa 66:7–12“Before she travailed, she gave birth. Before her pain came, she delivered a son.
  • Eph 3:6that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of his promise in Christ Jesus through the Good News,
  • Isa 49:18–23Lift up your eyes all around, and see: all these gather themselves together, and come to you. As I live,” says Yahweh, “you shall surely clothe yourself with them all as with an ornament, and dress yourself with them, like a bride.
  • Isa 60:4“Lift up your eyes all around, and see: they all gather themselves together. They come to you. Your sons will come from far away, and your daughters will be carried in arms.
  • Song 8:8–9We have a little sister. She has no breasts. What shall we do for our sister in the day when she is to be spoken for?
  • John 15:16You didn’t choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatever you will ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
  • Eph 2:12–14that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
  • Ps 119:59I considered my ways, and turned my steps to your statutes.
  • Ezek 6:9Those of you that escape will remember me among the nations where they are carried captive, how I have been broken with their lewd heart, which has departed from me, and with their eyes, which play the prostitute after their idols. Then they will loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.
  • Isa 54:1–2“Sing, barren, you who didn’t give birth; break out into singing, and cry aloud, you who did not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife,” says Yahweh.
  • Ezek 16:63that you may remember, and be confounded, and never open your mouth any more, because of your shame, when I have forgiven you all that you have done,” says the Lord Yahweh.’”
  • Job 42:5–6I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.
  • Jer 31:18–20“I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus, ‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as an untrained calf: turn me, and I shall be turned; for you are Yahweh my God.
  • Ezek 16:53–55“‘“I will turn again their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, and the captivity of your captives among them;
  • Isa 11:9–10They will not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of Yahweh, as the waters cover the sea.
  • Hos 1:9–11He said, “Call his name Lo-Ammi; for you are not my people, and I will not be yours.
  • Rom 15:8–9Now I say that Christ has been made a servant of the circumcision for the truth of God, that he might confirm the promises given to the fathers,
  • Isa 2:2–5It shall happen in the latter days, that the mountain of Yahweh’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it.
  • Ezek 36:31–32Then you shall remember your evil ways, and your doings that were not good; and you shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.
  • Jer 31:31–40“Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

Themes, concepts, people & topics

Topics (1)

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 16:61YouTube · 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 16:61 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.