Ezekiel 23:1–21

Samaria and Jerusalem Are Like Two Impure Sisters

23A message came to me from the Lord. He said, ²“Son of man, once there were two women. They had the same mother. ³They became prostitutes in Egypt. They have been unfaithful to me since they were young. In that land they allowed their breasts to be touched. They permitted their virgin breasts to be kissed.

⁴“The older sister was named Oholah. The younger one was Oholibah. They belonged to me. Sons and daughters were born to them. Oholah stands for Samaria. And Oholibah stands for Jerusalem.

⁵“Oholah was unfaithful to me even while she still belonged to me. She longed for her Assyrian lovers. ⁶They included soldiers who wore blue uniforms. They also included governors and commanders. All of them were young and handsome. They rode horses. ⁷She gave herself as a prostitute to all of Assyria’s finest warriors. She polluted herself with the statues of the gods of everyone she longed for.

⁸“She started being a prostitute in Egypt. And she never stopped. When she was young, men had sex with her. They kissed her virgin breasts. They used up all of their sinful longings on her.

⁹“So I handed her over to her Assyrian lovers. She longed for them. ¹⁰They stripped her naked. They took her sons and daughters away. And they killed her with their swords. Other women laughed when that happened. I was the one who had punished her.

¹¹“Her sister Oholibah saw it. But her evil longing for sexual sin was worse than her sister’s. ¹²She too longed for the men of Assyria. They included governors and commanders. They included soldiers who wore uniforms. They also included men who rode horses. All of them were young and handsome. ¹³I saw that she too polluted herself. So both sisters did the same evil things.

¹⁴“But Oholibah went even further with her sexual sins. She saw pictures of men drawn on a wall. They were figures of Babylonians drawn in red. ¹⁵They had belts around their waists. They wore flowing turbans on their heads. All of them looked like Babylonian chariot officers. They were from the land of the Chaldeans.

¹⁶“As soon as she saw the pictures, she longed for the men. So she sent messengers to them in Babylonia. ¹⁷Then the Babylonians came to her. They went to bed with her. They made love to her. They polluted her when they had sex with her. After they did it, she became sick of them. So she turned away from them.

¹⁸“She acted like a prostitute who had no shame at all. She openly showed her naked body. I became sick of what she was doing. So I turned away from her. I had also turned away from her sister.

¹⁹“But Oholibah offered her body to her lovers again and again. She remembered the days when she was a young prostitute in Egypt. ²⁰There she had longed for her lovers. Their private parts seemed as big as those of donkeys. And their flow of semen appeared to be as much as that of horses. ²¹So you wanted to return to the days when you were young. You longed for the time when you first became impure in Egypt. That was when you allowed your breasts to be kissed. And you permitted your young breasts to be touched.”