Ezekiel 23:1–21

The Sinful Sisters

23The Lord spoke to me. ²“Mortal man,” he said, “there were once two sisters. ³When they were young, living in Egypt, they lost their virginity and became prostitutes. ⁴The older one was named Oholah^x (she represents Samaria), and the younger one was named Oholibah^y (she represents Jerusalem). I married both of them, and they bore me children. ⁵Although she was mine, Oholah continued to be a prostitute and was full of lust for her lovers from Assyria. ⁶They were soldiers in uniforms of purple, noblemen and high-ranking officers; all of them were handsome young cavalry officers. ⁷She was the whore for all the Assyrian officers, and her lust led her to defile herself by worshipping Assyrian idols. ⁸She continued what she had begun as a prostitute in Egypt, where she lost her virginity. From the time she was a young woman, men slept with her and treated her like a prostitute. ⁹So I handed her over to her Assyrian lovers whom she wanted so much. ¹⁰They stripped her naked, seized her sons and daughters, and then killed her with a sword. Women everywhere gossiped about her fate.

¹¹“Even though her sister Oholibah saw this, she was wilder and more of a prostitute than Oholah had ever been. ¹²She too was full of lust for the Assyrian noblemen and officers—soldiers in bright uniforms—and for the cavalry officers, all those handsome young men. ¹³I saw that she was completely immoral, that the second sister was as bad as the first.

^14–15“She sank deeper and deeper in her immorality. She was attracted by the images of high Babylonian officials carved into the wall and painted bright red, with sashes round their waists and fancy turbans on their heads. ¹⁶As soon as she saw them, she was filled with lust and sent messengers to them in Babylonia. ¹⁷The Babylonians came to have sex with her. They used her and defiled her so much that finally she became disgusted with them. ¹⁸She exposed herself publicly and let everyone know she was a whore. I was as disgusted with her as I had been with her sister. ¹⁹She became more of a prostitute than ever, acting just as she did as a young woman, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. ²⁰She was filled with lust for oversexed men who had all the lustfulness of donkeys or stallions.” ²¹(Oholibah, you wanted to repeat the immorality you were guilty of as a young woman in Egypt, where men played with your breasts and you lost your virginity.)