My children, plead with your mother---though she is no longer a wife to me, and I am no longer her husband. Plead with her to stop her adultery and prostitution.

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."

Night and day you blunder on, and the prophets do no better than you. I am going to destroy Israel, your mother.

They ask for revelations from a piece of wood! A stick tells them what they want to know! They have left me. Like a woman who becomes a prostitute, they have given themselves to other gods.

Yet I will not punish them for this, because you yourselves go off with temple prostitutes, and together with them you offer pagan sacrifices. As the proverb says, 'A people without sense will be ruined.'

The city that once was faithful is behaving like a whore! At one time it was filled with righteous people, but now only murderers remain.

The LORD says, "Do you think I sent my people away like a man who divorces his wife? Where, then, are the papers of divorce? Do you think I sold you into captivity like a man who sells his children as slaves? No, you went away captive because of your sins; you were sent away because of your crimes.

The Sovereign LORD says, "Israel, long ago you rejected my authority; you refused to obey me and worship me. On every high hill and under every green tree you worshiped fertility gods.

Israel, don't wear your feet out, or let your throat become dry from chasing after other gods. But you say, 'No! I can't turn back. I have loved foreign gods and will go after them.' "

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.

You won't always be angry; you won't be mad at me forever.' Israel, that is what you said, but you did all the evil you could."

I thought that after she had done all this, she would surely return to me. But she did not return, and her unfaithful sister Judah saw it all.

and was not at all ashamed. She defiled the land, and she committed adultery by worshiping stones and trees.

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

You used some of your clothes to decorate your places of worship, and just like a prostitute, you gave yourself to everyone.

"Because you were not satisfied by the others, you went running after the Assyrians. You were their prostitute, but they didn't satisfy you either.

This is what the Sovereign LORD is saying: "You have done all this like a shameless prostitute.

You are like a woman who commits adultery with strangers instead of loving her husband.

You are a special kind of prostitute. No one forced you to become one. You didn't get paid; you paid them! Yes, you are different."

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.

But this is what I have against you: you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a messenger of God. By her teaching she misleads my servants into practicing sexual immorality and eating food that has been offered to idols.

And so I will throw her on a bed where she and those who committed adultery with her will suffer terribly. I will do this now unless they repent of the wicked things they did with her.

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 Spirit took control of me, and the angel carried me to a desert. There I saw a woman sitting on a red beast that had names insulting to God written all over it; the beast had seven heads and ten horns.

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

The LORD says, "When I first found Israel, it was like finding grapes growing in the desert. When I first saw your ancestors, it was like seeing the first ripe figs of the season. But when they came to Mount Peor, they began to worship Baal and soon became as disgusting as the gods they loved.

I said, "O God, I am too ashamed to raise my head in your presence. Our sins pile up higher than our heads; they reach as high as the heavens.

From the days of our ancestors until now, we, your people, have sinned greatly. Because of our sins we, our kings, and our priests have fallen into the hands of foreign kings, and we have been slaughtered, robbed, and carried away as prisoners. We have been totally disgraced, as we still are today.

The LORD says, "Just as a thief is disgraced when caught, so all you people of Israel will be disgraced---your kings and officials, your priests and prophets.

You will all be disgraced---you that say that a tree is your father and that a rock is your mother. This will happen because you turned away from me instead of turning to me. But when you are in trouble, you ask me to come and save you.

The people of Judah have as many gods as they have cities, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem have set up as many altars for sacrifices to that disgusting god Baal as there are streets in the city.

"We have sinned, we have been evil, we have done wrong. We have rejected what you commanded us to do and have turned away from what you showed us was right.

You, Lord, always do what is right, but we have always brought disgrace on ourselves. This is true of all of us who live in Judea and in Jerusalem and of all the Israelites whom you scattered in countries near and far because they were unfaithful to you.

I will punish her for the times that she forgot me, when she burned incense to Baal and put on her jewelry to go chasing after her lovers. The LORD has spoken.

Stubborn as wild donkeys, the people of Israel go their own way. They have gone off to seek help from Assyria and have paid other nations to protect them.

You go to the high mountains to offer sacrifices and have sex.

You set up your obscene idols just inside your front doors. You forsake me; you take off your clothes and climb in your large beds with your lovers, whom you pay to sleep with you. And there you satisfy your lust.

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.

As soon as she saw them, she was filled with lust and sent messengers to them in Babylonia.

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

"Again and again they sent messengers to invite men to come from a great distance, and the men came. The two sisters would bathe and put on eye shadow and jewelry.

The sound of a carefree crowd could be heard, a group of men brought in from the desert. They put bracelets on the women's arms and beautiful crowns on their heads.

They went back to these prostitutes again and again. They went back to Oholah and Oholibah, those immoral women.

She would never acknowledge that I am the one who gave her the grain, the wine, the olive oil, and all the silver and gold that she used in the worship of Baal.

I will destroy her grapevines and her fig trees, which she said her lovers gave her for serving them. I will turn her vineyards and orchards into a wilderness; wild animals will destroy them.

The Philistine kings met together to celebrate and offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon. They sang, "Our god has given us victory over our enemy Samson!"

We will do everything that we said we would. We will offer sacrifices to our goddess, the Queen of Heaven, and we will pour out wine offerings to her, just as we and our ancestors, our king and our leaders, used to do in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. Then we had plenty of food, we were prosperous, and had no troubles.

But ever since we stopped sacrificing to the Queen of Heaven and stopped pouring out wine offerings to her, we have had nothing, and our people have died in war and of starvation."