1 The word of the LORD came to me: 2 "Son of man, confront Jerusalem with her detestable practices 3 and say, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says to Jerusalem: Your ancestry and birth were in the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. 4 On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. 5 No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised.
6 " 'Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, "Live!" [a] 7 I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew up and developed and became the most beautiful of jewels. [b] Your breasts were formed and your hair grew, you who were naked and bare.
8 " 'Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign LORD, and you became mine.
9 " 'I bathed [c] you with water and washed the blood from you and put ointments on you. 10 I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put leather sandals on you. I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments. 11 I adorned you with jewelry: I put bracelets on your arms and a necklace around your neck, 12 and I put a ring on your nose, earrings on your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. 13 So you were adorned with gold and silver; your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered cloth. Your food was fine flour, honey and olive oil. You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen. 14 And your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign LORD.
15 " 'But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to become a prostitute. You lavished your favors on anyone who passed by and your beauty became his. [d] 16 You took some of your garments to make gaudy high places, where you carried on your prostitution. Such things should not happen, nor should they ever occur. 17 You also took the fine jewelry I gave you, the jewelry made of my gold and silver, and you made for yourself male idols and engaged in prostitution with them. 18 And you took your embroidered clothes to put on them, and you offered my oil and incense before them. 19 Also the food I provided for you—the fine flour, olive oil and honey I gave you to eat—you offered as fragrant incense before them. That is what happened, declares the Sovereign LORD.
20 " 'And you took your sons and daughters whom you bore to me and sacrificed them as food to the idols. Was your prostitution not enough? 21 You slaughtered my children and sacrificed them [e] to the idols. 22 In all your detestable practices and your prostitution you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, kicking about in your blood.
23 " 'Woe! Woe to you, declares the Sovereign LORD. In addition to all your other wickedness, 24 you built a mound for yourself and made a lofty shrine in every public square. 25 At the head of every street you built your lofty shrines and degraded your beauty, offering your body with increasing promiscuity to anyone who passed by. 26 You engaged in prostitution with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, and provoked me to anger with your increasing promiscuity. 27 So I stretched out my hand against you and reduced your territory; I gave you over to the greed of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were shocked by your lewd conduct. 28 You engaged in prostitution with the Assyrians too, because you were insatiable; and even after that, you still were not satisfied. 29 Then you increased your promiscuity to include Babylonia, [f] a land of merchants, but even with this you were not satisfied.
30 " 'How weak-willed you are, declares the Sovereign LORD, when you do all these things, acting like a brazen prostitute! 31 When you built your mounds at the head of every street and made your lofty shrines in every public square, you were unlike a prostitute, because you scorned payment.
32 " 'You adulterous wife! You prefer strangers to your own husband! 33 Every prostitute receives a fee, but you give gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from everywhere for your illicit favors. 34 So in your prostitution you are the opposite of others; no one runs after you for your favors. You are the very opposite, for you give payment and none is given to you.
35 " 'Therefore, you prostitute, hear the word of the LORD! 36 This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Because you poured out your wealth [g] and exposed your nakedness in your promiscuity with your lovers, and because of all your detestable idols, and because you gave them your children's blood, 37 therefore I am going to gather all your lovers, with whom you found pleasure, those you loved as well as those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around and will strip you in front of them, and they will see all your nakedness. 38 I will sentence you to the punishment of women who commit adultery and who shed blood; I will bring upon you the blood vengeance of my wrath and jealous anger. 39 Then I will hand you over to your lovers, and they will tear down your mounds and destroy your lofty shrines. They will strip you of your clothes and take your fine jewelry and leave you naked and bare. 40 They will bring a mob against you, who will stone you and hack you to pieces with their swords. 41 They will burn down your houses and inflict punishment on you in the sight of many women. I will put a stop to your prostitution, and you will no longer pay your lovers. 42 Then my wrath against you will subside and my jealous anger will turn away from you; I will be calm and no longer angry.
43 " 'Because you did not remember the days of your youth but enraged me with all these things, I will surely bring down on your head what you have done, declares the Sovereign LORD. Did you not add lewdness to all your other detestable practices?
44 " 'Everyone who quotes proverbs will quote this proverb about you: "Like mother, like daughter." 45 You are a true daughter of your mother, who despised her husband and her children; and you are a true sister of your sisters, who despised their husbands and their children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite. 46 Your older sister was Samaria, who lived to the north of you with her daughters; and your younger sister, who lived to the south of you with her daughters, was Sodom. 47 You not only walked in their ways and copied their detestable practices, but in all your ways you soon became more depraved than they. 48 As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done.
49 " 'Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. 51 Samaria did not commit half the sins you did. You have done more detestable things than they, and have made your sisters seem righteous by all these things you have done. 52 Bear your disgrace, for you have furnished some justification for your sisters. Because your sins were more vile than theirs, they appear more righteous than you. So then, be ashamed and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous.
59 " 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will deal with you as you deserve, because you have despised my oath by breaking the covenant. 60 Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.
Ezekiel 16: 1-52; 59-60
An incredibly long verse to start off with, and I apologize if I've lost your attention, but it was of complete necessity to the cause. The analogy of God's people being His bride--it's one way that we know that God and Jesus were in fact the same person because they both spoke of us as their bride, but it's also my favorite comparison as to what we are to our Lord. We've been called children, we've been called friends, but greatest of all, we are called His wife. Where friends come and go and children are raised and set out to carry on for themselves, marriage is permanent--the way God intended for it to work was a relationship that lasted until death do you part. And since God is eternal and so are we when we come into a relationship with Him, we have a union that is eternally binding and all loving.
It's an incredible thing, really. Marriage was created by God to last forever no matter what problems must be worked out, and we can see God's intention of that through his very own relationship. Look back at the verse: can you see the emotion of God in this passage? Marriage is intended to last through the good and the bad, and this is most certainly not the best of days for our relationship with our Lord. Read the words the Father uses when he speaks of His people--how he chose us from our broken and humble roots; how he raised us and cared for us; adorned us with beauty and lavish things; chose us as His bride and Queen over all of creation; and how He made us capable of sharing in His perfect and eternal love. It is clear to see how much our Groom truly loves and cares for us. But how did we choose to share in our love? We took advantage of our beauty and gifts and decided to prostitute ourselves out to every idol and people we could find. We gave our gold as gifts for those who practiced prostitution with us; instead of charging for our infidelity, we paid those who helped us defile ourselves. We offered our children, HIS offspring, as human sacrifices to our false idols and fake Gods. The Lord even goes far enough to say that we are a far worse people than our sisters Samaria and Sodom, one of which was destroyed by God's wrath because of their sins. (Ezekiel 15-34; 45-48)
So why are we still here? Why are we still the chosen people and Bride of Christ? It is because God created marriage to be a commitment through the good and the bad, the sickness and the health, the rich and the poor, and in this case the idolatry and the prostitution, and since in death we do not part, NOTHING can cause divorce between us (Ezekiel 16: 41-42). It's incredible to think of this idea considering that in America today, 51% of marriages end before death in divorce. I am completely blown away by my Savior, that through all of this He would still decide to keep His word and keep His commitment--THIS is how I know that He is a fair and loving God.
When I read this passage this morning, I was moved to tears because I could FEEL the pain God must have felt when He spoke these words. I could honestly see the TEARS that must have been falling from His eyes as He watched us sell ourselves as sex toys to our idols and neighboring lands. What do you think it looks like when a perfect, omnipresent, and all-powerful being cries? How much of the earth do you think is shaken and disturbed? I can't scarcely fathom the concept. I do, however, know one thing: any God and groom that is willing to watch this through all of the agony and pain He must have felt and still choose to love and keep me is one that I will do my best to stay faithful to for the rest of my days on this earth.
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