Old Testament

New Testament

Ezekiel 23:3-20 New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE)

3. Even as young girls, they were prostitutes, serving as prostitutes in Egypt. There the Egyptians fondled their breasts and caressed their virgin nipples.

4. Oholah was the name of the elder, and the name of her sister was Oholibah. They became mine and gave birth to sons and daughters. As for their names: Samaria was Oholah and Jerusalem, Oholibah.

5. Oholah became a prostitute while married to me and lusted after her lovers, the Assyrians: warriors

6. dressed in purple, governors and officers, all of them handsome young soldiers, mounted on horses.

7. She gave herself as a prostitute to them, to all the Assyrian elite; with all those for whom she lusted, she also defiled herself with their idols.

8. She did not abandon the prostitution she had begun with the Egyptians, who had lain with her when she was young, fondling her virgin breasts and pouring out their lust upon her.

9. Therefore I handed her over to her lovers, to the Assyrians for whom she lusted.

10. They exposed her nakedness; her sons and daughters they took away, and her they killed with the sword. She became a byword for women because of the sentence carried out against her.

11. Although her sister Oholibah saw all this, her lust was more depraved than her sister’s; she outdid her in prostitution.

12. She too lusted after the Assyrians, governors and officers, warriors impeccably clothed, mounted on horses, all of them handsome young soldiers.

13. I saw that she had defiled herself—now both had gone down the same path.

14. She went further in her prostitution: She saw male figures drawn on the wall, images of Chaldeans drawn with vermilion,

15. with sashes tied about their waists, flowing turbans on their heads, all looking like chariot warriors, images of Babylonians, natives of Chaldea.

16. As soon as she set eyes on them she lusted for them, and she sent messengers to them in Chaldea.

17. The Babylonians came to her, to her love couch; they defiled her with their impurities. But as soon as they had defiled her, she recoiled from them.

18. When her prostitution was discovered and her shame revealed, I recoiled from her as I had recoiled from her sister.

19. But she increased her prostitution, recalling the days of her youth when she had served as a prostitute in the land of Egypt.

20. She lusted for the lechers of Egypt, whose members are like those of donkeys, whose thrusts are like those of stallions.

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