The Babylonian Exile

'you built platforms and made yourself high places in every open space.

You built your high places at every streetcorner, turning your beauty into an abomination, spreading your legs for every passer-by, and multiplying your acts of fornication.

You had sex with your big-membered Egyptian neighbors and engaged in fornication over and over, just to provoke me.

So now I have stretched out my hand over you, diminished your ration of food and put you at the mercy of those who hate you, the daughters of the P'lishtim, who find your lewd behavior revolting.

"'Still unsatisfied, you acted like a whore also with the people of Ashur; yes, you fornicated with them and were still not satisfied.

You multiplied your acts of fornication with the land of traders, the Kasdim, and still weren't satisfied.

"'You are so weak-willed!' says Adonai ELOHIM. 'You do all these things, behaving like a shameless whore,

building your platforms on every streetcorner, making your high places in every open space - and yet you aren't like a whore, because you scorn getting paid.

Here is a wife who commits adultery, who goes to bed with strangers instead of her husband;

but also instead of receiving gifts like every other prostitute, you give gifts to all your lovers, you bribe them to come to you from all over the place and have sex with you!

You are the opposite of other women - you solicit the fornication, you aren't solicited; and you pay them, they don't pay you - you're the opposite!

"'All right, you whore, listen to the word of ADONAI!'

Adonai ELOHIM says: 'Because your filth has been poured out and your privates exposed through your acts of fornication with your lovers, and because of all the idols of your disgusting practices, and because of the blood of your children, which you gave them,

therefore, look! I am going to gather all your lovers, to whom you have been so very nice, all the ones you hate right along with all the ones you love - I will gather them against you from all over the place and expose your private parts to them, so that they will see you completely naked.

I will pronounce on you the sentence that applies to women who commit adultery and murder; I will bring on you the death [decreed for] furious jealousy.

Yes, I will hand you over to them; and they will make a ruin of your platforms, tear down your high places, strip you of your clothes, take away your jewels, and leave you naked and exposed.

They will also bring up a mob against you, who will stone you to death and hack you to pieces with their swords.

They will burn your houses to the ground and execute judgments against you in the presence of many women. I will make you stop fornicating, and you will never again pay for a lover.

"'Yes, I will satisfy my fury against you. But after that, my jealousy will leave you; and I will calm down and no longer be angry.

"'Because you didn't remember the condition you were in when you were young, but enraged me with all these things, therefore I will bring [the consequences of] your ways on your own head' says Adonai ELOHIM. "'You committed these obscenities in addition to all your other disgusting practices!

Everyone who quotes proverbs will quote this proverb against you, "Like mother, like daughter."

Yes, you are your mother's daughter, who despises her husband and children; you are the sister of your sisters, who despise their husbands and children; your mother was a Hitti and your father an Emori.

Moreover, your older sister is Shomron, who lives at your left, she and her daughters; and your younger sister, living at your right, is S'dom with her daughters.

You didn't merely live by their ways and act according to their disgusting practices, but in a very short time you acted more corruptly than they in all your ways.

"'As I live' says Adonai ELOHIM, 'your sister S'dom has not done, neither she nor her daughters, [as much evil] as you have done, you and your daughters.