אֵת

And in all your abominations and acts of prostitution, you did not remember the days of your youth when you were naked and bare, wallowing in your own blood.

At the head of every street you built your lofty shrines and degraded your beauty. With increasing promiscuity, you spread your legs to all who passed by.

You prostituted yourself with your lustful neighbors, the Egyptians, and increased your promiscuity to provoke Me to anger.

So you extended your promiscuity to Chaldea, the land of merchants—but even with this you were not satisfied!

How weak-willed is your heart, declares the Lord GOD, while you do all these things, the acts of a shameless prostitute!

You adulterous wife! You receive strangers instead of your own husband!

Men give gifts to all their prostitutes, but you gave gifts to all your lovers. You bribed them to come to you from everywhere for your illicit favors.

…therefore I will surely gather all the lovers with whom you found pleasure, all those you loved and all those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around and expose you before them, and they will see you completely naked.

Then I will deliver you into the hands of your lovers, and they will level your mounds and tear down your lofty shrines. They will strip off your clothes, take your fine jewelry, and leave you naked and bare.

They will bring a mob against you, who will stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords.

Because you did not remember the days of your youth, but enraged Me with all these things, I will surely bring your deeds down upon your own head, declares the Lord GOD. Have you not committed this lewdness on top of all your other abominations?

Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I removed them, as you have seen.

Furthermore, Samaria did not commit half the sins you did. You have multiplied your abominations beyond theirs, and all the abominations you have committed have made your sisters appear righteous.

But I will restore Sodom and her daughters from captivity, as well as Samaria and her daughters. And I will restore you along with them.

So you will bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all you did to comfort them.

…before your wickedness was uncovered? Even so, you are now scorned by the daughters of Edom and all those around her, and by the daughters of the Philistines—all those around you who despise you.

You will bear the consequences of your lewdness and your abominations, declares the LORD.

But I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.

Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you receive your older and younger sisters. I will give them to you as daughters, but not because of My covenant with you.

So I will establish My covenant with you, and you will know that I am the LORD,

…and tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘A great eagle with great wings and long pinions, full of feathers of many colors, came to Lebanon and took away the top of the cedar.

He plucked off its topmost shoot, carried it to the land of merchants, and planted it in a city of traders.

But there was another great eagle with great wings and many feathers. And behold, this vine bent its roots toward him. It stretched out its branches to him from its planting bed, so that he might water it.

So you are to tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Will it flourish? Will it not be uprooted and stripped of its fruit so that it shrivels? All its foliage will wither! It will not take a strong arm or many people to pull it up by its roots.

“Now say to this rebellious house: ‘Do you not know what these things mean?’ Tell them, ‘Behold, the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem, carried off its king and officials, and brought them back with him to Babylon.

He took a member of the royal family and made a covenant with him, putting him under oath. Then he carried away the leading men of the land,

…so that the kingdom would be brought low, unable to lift itself up, surviving only by keeping his covenant.

‘As surely as I live,’ declares the Lord GOD, ‘he will die in Babylon, in the land of the king who enthroned him, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke.

Pharaoh with his mighty army and vast horde will not help him in battle, when ramps are built and siege walls constructed to destroy many lives.