Isaiah 1:21

Purifying Judgment

1:21 How tragic that the once-faithful city

has become a prostitute!

She was once a center of justice,

fairness resided in her,

but now only murderers.

Isaiah 23:15-16

23:15 At that time Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, the typical life span of a king. At the end of seventy years Tyre will try to attract attention again, like the prostitute in the popular song:

23:16 “Take the harp,

go through the city,

forgotten prostitute!

Play it well,

play lots of songs,

so you’ll be noticed!”

Jeremiah 3:1

3:1 “If a man divorces his wife

and she leaves him and becomes another man’s wife,

he may not take her back again.

Doing that would utterly defile the land.

But you, Israel, have given yourself as a prostitute to many gods.

So what makes you think you can return to me?”

says the Lord.

Jeremiah 3:6-8

3:6 When Josiah was king of Judah, the Lord said to me, “Jeremiah, you have no doubt seen what wayward Israel has done. You have seen how she went up to every high hill and under every green tree to give herself like a prostitute to other gods. 3:7 Yet even after she had done all that, I thought that she might come back to me. But she did not. Her sister, unfaithful Judah, saw what she did. 3:8 She also saw that I gave wayward Israel her divorce papers and sent her away because of her adulterous worship of other gods. Even after her unfaithful sister Judah had seen this, she still was not afraid, and she too went and gave herself like a prostitute to other gods.

Hosea 2:5

2:5 For their mother has committed adultery;

she who conceived them has acted shamefully.

For she said, “I will seek out my lovers;

they are the ones who give me my bread and my water,

my wool, my flax, my olive oil, and my wine.

Nahum 3:4

Taunt against the Harlot City

3:4 “Because you have acted like a wanton prostitute –

a seductive mistress who practices sorcery,

who enslaves nations by her harlotry,

and entices peoples by her sorcery –

John 4:10

4:10 Jesus answered her, “If you had known the gift of God and who it is who said to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

John 4:18

4:18 for you have had five husbands, and the man you are living with now is not your husband. This you said truthfully!”

Revelation 17:5

17:5 On her forehead was written a name, a mystery: “Babylon the Great, the Mother of prostitutes and of the detestable things of the earth.”