Ezekiel 16:15-22
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
15 But you trusted in your own beauty and used your renown to serve as a prostitute. You poured out your prostitution on every passerby—let it be his.(A) 16 [a]You took some of your garments and made for yourself gaudy high places, where you served as a prostitute. It has never happened before, nor will it happen again!(B) 17 You took the splendid gold and silver ornaments that I had given you and made for yourself male images and served as a prostitute with them. 18 You took your embroidered garments to cover them; my oil and my incense you set before them; 19 the food I had given you, the fine flour, the oil, and the honey with which I fed you, you set before them as a pleasant odor, says the Lord God.(C) 20 [b](D)The sons and daughters you bore for me you took and offered as sacrifices for them to devour! Was it not enough that you had become a prostitute? 21 (E)You slaughtered and immolated my children to them, making them pass through fire. 22 In all your abominations and prostitutions you did not remember the days of your youth when you were stark naked, struggling in your blood.(F)
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- 16:16 In the allegory of this chapter the viewpoint often shifts from the figure (prostitution) to the reality (idolatry). A symbol of the woman’s depravity supersedes her parents’ cruel abandonment when she was an infant. It overrides the loyalty she owes her covenant partner and the care she owes their children.
- 16:20–21 Also a reference to the practice of child sacrifice introduced under Judah’s impious kings; cf. 2 Kgs 16:3; 17:17; Jer 7:31; 19:5; 32:35.
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