This is the Good News about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

The LORD said to me, "Go again and show your love for a woman who is committing adultery with a lover. You must love her just as I still love the people of Israel, even though they turn to other gods and like to take offerings of raisins to idols."

Three years earlier the LORD had told Isaiah son of Amoz to take off his sandals and the sackcloth he was wearing. He obeyed and went around naked and barefoot.

When Ashdod was captured, the LORD said, "My servant Isaiah has been going around naked and barefoot for three years. This is a sign of what will happen to Egypt and Ethiopia.

The LORD told me to go and buy myself some linen shorts and to put them on; but he told me not to put them in water.

Then the LORD spoke to me again and said,

So I went and hid them near the Euphrates.

So I went back, and when I found the place where I had hidden them, I saw that they were ruined and were no longer any good.

"This is how I will destroy the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem.

Just as shorts fit tightly around the waist, so I intended all the people of Israel and Judah to hold tightly to me. I did this so that they would be my people and would bring praise and honor to my name; but they would not obey me."

God said, "Mortal man, get a brick, put it in front of you, and scratch lines on it to represent the city of Jerusalem.

Take an iron pan and set it up like a wall between you and the city. Face the city. It is under siege, and you are the one besieging it. This will be a sign to the nation of Israel.

(SEE 4:4)

I will not show mercy to her children; they are the children of a shameless prostitute. She herself said, "I will go to my lovers---they give me food and water, wool and linen, olive oil and wine."

They want to look for nothing but the chance to commit adultery; their appetite for sin is never satisfied. They lead weak people into a trap. Their hearts are trained to be greedy. They are under God's curse!

Do not make any treaties with the people of the country, because when they worship their pagan gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you to join them, and you will be tempted to eat the food they offer to their gods.

Your sons might marry those foreign women, who would lead them to be unfaithful to me and to worship their pagan gods.

The LORD said to Moses, "You will soon die, and after your death the people will become unfaithful to me and break the covenant that I made with them. They will abandon me and worship the pagan gods of the land they are about to enter.

Instead, you have followed the example of the kings of Israel and have led the people of Judah and Jerusalem into being unfaithful to God, just as Ahab and his successors led Israel into unfaithfulness. You even murdered your brothers, who were better men than you are.

Those who abandon you will certainly perish; you will destroy those who are unfaithful to you.

They made themselves impure by their actions and were unfaithful to God.

for my people have committed two sins: they have turned away from me, the spring of fresh water, and they have dug cisterns, cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all.

The LORD says, "If a man divorces his wife, and she leaves him and becomes another man's wife, he cannot take her back again. This would completely defile the land. But, Israel, you have had many lovers, and now you want to return to me!

That is why the rains were held back, and the spring showers did not come. You even look like a prostitute; you have no shame.

where they will live in exile. There they will remember me and know that I have punished them and disgraced them, because their faithless hearts deserted me and they preferred idols to me. And they will be disgusted with themselves because of the evil and degrading things they have done.

The LORD spoke to me again.

Tell Jerusalem what the Sovereign LORD is saying to her: "You were born in the land of Canaan. Your father was an Amorite, and your mother was a Hittite.

No one took enough pity on you to do any of these things for you. When you were born, no one loved you. You were thrown out in an open field.

I made you grow like a healthy plant. You grew strong and tall and became a young woman. Your breasts were well-formed, and your hair had grown, but you were naked.

"Then I took water and washed the blood off you. I rubbed olive oil on your skin.

I put jewels on you---bracelets and necklaces.

You had ornaments of gold and silver, and you always wore clothes of embroidered linen and silk. You ate bread made from the best flour, and had honey and olive oil to eat. Your beauty was dazzling, and you became a queen.

"But you took advantage of your beauty and fame to sleep with everyone who came along.

You took the silver and gold jewelry that I had given you, used it to make male images, and committed adultery with them.

I gave you food---the best flour, olive oil, and honey---but you offered it as a sacrifice to win the favor of idols." This is what the Sovereign LORD says.

without taking my children and sacrificing them to idols?

The Sovereign LORD said, "You are doomed! Doomed! You did all that evil, and then

You dragged your beauty through the mud. You offered yourself to everyone who came by, and you were more of a prostitute every day.

"Now I have raised my hand to punish you and to take away your share of my blessing. I have handed you over to the Philistines, who hate you and are disgusted with your immoral actions.

You were also a prostitute for the Babylonians, that nation of merchants, but they didn't satisfy you either."

On every street you built places to worship idols and practice prostitution. But you are not out for money like a common prostitute.

A prostitute is paid, but you gave presents to all your lovers and bribed them to come from everywhere to sleep with you.

Now then, Jerusalem, you whore! Hear what the LORD is saying.

Because of this I will bring all your former lovers together---the ones you liked and the ones you hated. I will bring them around you in a circle, and then I will strip off your clothes and let them see you naked.

I will put you in their power, and they will tear down the places where you engage in prostitution and worship idols. They will take away your clothes and jewels and leave you completely naked.

They will burn your houses down and let crowds of women see your punishment. I will make you stop being a prostitute and make you stop giving gifts to your lovers.

You have forgotten how I treated you when you were young, and you have made me angry by all the things you did. That is why I have made you pay for them all. Why did you add sexual immorality to all the other disgusting things you did?" The Sovereign LORD has spoken.

You really are your mother's daughter. She detested her husband and her children. You are like your sisters, who hated their husbands and their children. You and your sister cities had a Hittite mother and an Amorite father.

Were you satisfied to follow in their footsteps and copy their disgusting actions? No, in only a little while you were acting worse than they were in everything you did.

She and her daughters were proud because they had plenty to eat and lived in peace and quiet, but they did not take care of the poor and the underprivileged.

"Samaria did not sin half as much as you have. You have acted more disgustingly than she ever did. Your corruption makes your sisters look innocent by comparison.

The LORD said to Jerusalem, "I will make them prosperous again---Sodom and her villages and Samaria and her villages. Yes, I will make you prosperous too.

They will become prosperous again, and you and your villages will also be restored.

and before the evil you did had been exposed? Now you are just like her---a joke to the Edomites, the Philistines, and your other neighbors who hate you.

The Sovereign LORD says, "I will treat you the way you deserve, because you ignored your promises and broke the covenant.

You will remember how you have acted, and be ashamed of it when you get your older sister and your younger sister back. I will let them be like daughters to you, even though this was not part of my covenant with you.

I will forgive all the wrongs you have done, but you will remember them and be too ashamed to open your mouth." The Sovereign LORD has spoken.

The LORD spoke to me.

When they were young, living in Egypt, they lost their virginity and became prostitutes.

Although she was mine, Oholah continued to be a prostitute and was full of lust for her lovers from Assyria.

She was the whore for all the Assyrian officers, and her lust led her to defile herself by worshiping Assyrian idols.

So I handed her over to her Assyrian lovers whom she wanted so much.

"Even though her sister Oholibah saw this, she was wilder and more of a prostitute than Oholah had ever been.

I saw that she was completely immoral, that the second sister was as bad as the first.

(SEE 23:14)

The Babylonians came to have sex with her. They used her and defiled her so much that finally she became disgusted with them.

She became more of a prostitute than ever, acting the way she did as a young woman, when she was a prostitute in Egypt.

(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.)

I will bring all the Babylonians and Chaldeans, men from Pekod, Shoa, and Koa, and all the Assyrians. I will gather all those handsome young noblemen and officers, all those important officials and high-ranking cavalry officers.

Because I am angry with you, I will let them deal with you in their anger. They will cut off your nose and your ears and kill your children. Yes, they will take your sons and daughters from you and burn them alive.

I will put a stop to your lust and to the obscenities you have committed ever since you were in Egypt. You won't look at any more idols or think about Egypt any more."

And because they hate you, they will take away everything you have worked for and leave you stripped naked, exposed like a prostitute. Your lust and your prostitution

You followed in your sister's footsteps, and so I will give you the same cup of punishment to drink."

It will make you miserable and drunk, that cup of fear and ruin, your sister Samaria's cup.

Now this is what the Sovereign LORD is saying: "Because you forgot me and turned your back on me, you will suffer for your lust and your prostitution."

They have committed adultery and murder---adultery with idols and murder of the children they bore me. They sacrificed my children to their idols.

The very day that they killed my children as sacrifices to idols, they came to my Temple and profaned it!

They would sit on a beautiful couch, and in front of them they would have a table covered with good things, including the incense and the olive oil that I had given them.

And I said to myself that they were using as a prostitute a woman worn out by adultery.

Righteous men will condemn them on the charge of adultery and murder, because they practice adultery and their hands are stained with blood."

Let the mob stone them and attack them with swords, kill their children, and burn down their houses.

And you two sisters---I will punish you for your immorality and your sin of worshiping idols. Then you will know that I am the Sovereign LORD."

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came to me and said, "Come, and I will show you how the famous prostitute is to be punished, that great city that is built near many rivers.

The kings of the earth practiced sexual immorality with her, and the people of the world became drunk from drinking the wine of her immorality."

On her forehead was written a name that has a secret meaning: "Great Babylon, the mother of all prostitutes and perverts in the world."