Jeremiah 3:2

3:2 “Look up at the hilltops and consider this. ¹ 

You have had sex with other gods on every one of them. ² 

You waited for those gods like a thief lying in wait in the desert. ³ 

You defiled the land by your wicked prostitution to other gods. ⁴ 

Jeremiah 3:6

3:6 When Josiah was king of Judah, the Lord said to me, “Jeremiah, you have no doubt seen what wayward Israel has done. ⁵  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. ⁶ 

Jeremiah 2:20

The Lord Expresses His Exasperation at Judah’s Persistent Idolatry

2:20 “Indeed, ⁷  long ago you threw off my authority

and refused to be subject to me. ⁸ 

You said, ‘I will not serve you.’ ⁹ 

Instead, you gave yourself to other gods on every high hill

and under every green tree,

like a prostitute sprawls out before her lovers. ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah 2:25

2:25 Do not chase after other gods until your shoes wear out

and your throats become dry. ¹¹ 

But you say, ‘It is useless for you to try and stop me

because I love those foreign gods ¹²  and want to pursue them!’

Ezekiel 16:15

16:15 “‘But you trusted in your beauty and capitalized on your fame by becoming a prostitute. You offered your sexual favors to every man who passed by so that your beauty ¹³  became his.

Ezekiel 16:24-25

16:24 you built yourself a chamber ¹⁴  and put up a pavilion ¹⁵  in every public square. 16:25 At the head of every street you erected your pavilion and you disgraced ¹⁶  your beauty when you spread ¹⁷  your legs to every passerby and multiplied your promiscuity.

[3:2]  ¹ tn Heb “and see.”

[3:2]  ² tn Heb “Where have you not been ravished?” The rhetorical question expects the answer “nowhere,” which suggests she has engaged in the worship of pagan gods on every one of the hilltops.

[3:2]  ³ tn Heb “You sat for them [the lovers, i.e., the foreign gods] beside the road like an Arab in the desert.”

[3:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “by your prostitution and your wickedness.” This is probably an example of hendiadys where, when two nouns are joined by “and,” one expresses the main idea and the other qualifies it.

[3:6]  ⁵ tn “Have you seen…” The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer.

[3:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “she played the prostitute there.” This is a metaphor for Israel’s worship; she gave herself to the worship of other gods like a prostitute gives herself to her lovers. There seems no clear way to completely spell out the metaphor in the translation.

[2:20]  ⁷ tn Or “For.” The Hebrew particle (כִּי, ki) here introduces the evidence that they had no respect for him.

[2:20]  ⁸ tn Heb “you broke your yoke…tore off your yoke ropes.” The metaphor is that of a recalcitrant ox or heifer which has broken free from its master.

[2:20]  ⁹ tc The MT of this verse has two examples of the old second feminine singular perfect, שָׁבַרְתִּי (shavarti) and נִתַּקְתִּי (nittaqti), which the Masoretes mistook for first singulars leading to the proposal to read אֶעֱבוֹר (’e’evor, “I will not transgress”) for אֶעֱבֹד (’e’evod, “I will not serve”). The latter understanding of the forms is accepted in KJV but rejected by almost all modern English versions as being less appropriate to the context than the reading accepted in the translation given here.

[2:20]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “you sprawled as a prostitute on….” The translation reflects the meaning of the metaphor.

[2:25]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Refrain your feet from being bare and your throat from being dry/thirsty.”

[2:25]  ¹² tn Heb “It is useless! No!” For this idiom, see Jer 18:12; NEB “No; I am desperate.”

[16:15]  ¹³ tn Heb “it” (so KJV, ASV); the referent (the beauty in which the prostitute trusted, see the beginning of the verse) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[16:24]  ¹⁴ tn The Hebrew גֶּב (gev) may represent more than one word, each rare in the Old Testament. It may refer to a “mound” or to “rafters.” The LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate interpret this as a brothel.

[16:24]  ¹⁵ tn Or “lofty place” (NRSV). See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 1:229, and B. Lang, Frau Weisheit, 137.

[16:25]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “treated as if abominable,” i.e., repudiated.

[16:25]  ¹⁷ tn The only other occurrence of the Hebrew root is found in Prov 13:3 in reference to the talkative person who habitually “opens wide” his lips.