How skillfully you pursue love! Even the most immoral of women could learn from your ways.
Parallel translations
- WEB How well you prepare your way to seek love! Therefore you have even taught the wicked women your ways.
- KJV Why trimmest thou thy way to seek love? therefore hast thou also taught the wicked ones thy ways.
- NKJV “Why do you beautify your way to seek love? Therefore you have also taught The wicked women your ways.
- NASB “How well you prepare your way To seek love! Therefore even to the wicked women You have taught your ways.
- NLT “How you plot and scheme to win your lovers. Even an experienced prostitute could learn from 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
Israel has become skilled in pursuing illicit love, even teaching others evil. Their corruption has become expert and contagious.
Overview
Yahweh says Israel has become so adept at seeking 'love' through idolatry that they could instruct even wicked women in their ways. Sin has matured into a practiced craft that corrupts others. This shows how unfaithfulness, left unchecked, spreads its influence rather than staying contained.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Isa 57:7–10On a high and lofty hill you have made your bed, and there you went up to offer sacrifices.
- Ezek 16:47And you not only walked in their ways and practiced their abominations, but soon you were more depraved than they were.
- Ezek 16:51–52Furthermore, Samaria did not commit half the sins you did. You have multiplied your abominations beyond theirs, and all the abominations you have committed have made your sisters appear righteous.
- Jer 2:23“How can you say, ‘I am not defiled; I have not run after the Baals’? Look at your behavior in the valley; acknowledge what you have done. You are a swift young she-camel galloping here and there,
- Jer 3:1–2“If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him to marry another, can he ever return to her? Would not such a land be completely defiled? But you have played the harlot with many lovers—and you would return to Me?” declares the LORD.
- 2 Chr 33:9So Manasseh led the people of Judah and Jerusalem astray, so that they did greater evil than the nations that the LORD had destroyed before the Israelites.
- Jer 2:36How unstable you are, constantly changing your ways! You will be disappointed by Egypt just as you were by Assyria.
- Ezek 16:27Therefore I stretched out My hand against you and reduced your portion. I gave you over to the desire of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd conduct.
- Hos 2:5–7For their mother has played the harlot and has conceived them in disgrace. For she thought, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me bread and water, wool and linen, oil and drink.’
- Hos 2:13I will punish her for the days of the Baals when she burned incense to them, when she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers. But Me she forgot,” declares the LORD.
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Christ at the center
Against the failure of false shepherds Jeremiah promises the Righteous Branch, 'The LORD our righteousness,' and the new covenant written on the heart and sealed in the blood of Christ.
How Jeremiah 2:33 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
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.