“‘The person who turns to the spirits of the dead and familiar spirits to commit prostitution by going after them, I will set my face against that person and cut him off from the midst of his people.

They must not take a wife defiled by prostitution, nor are they to take a wife divorced from her husband, for the priest is holy to his God.

He must not marry a widow, a divorced woman, or one profaned by prostitution; he may only take a virgin from his people as a wife.

You must never bring the pay of a female prostitute or the wage of a male prostitute into the temple of the Lord your God in fulfillment of any vow, for both of these are abhorrent to the Lord your God.

Gideon used all this to make an ephod, which he put in his hometown of Ophrah. All the Israelites prostituted themselves to it by worshiping it there. It became a snare to Gideon and his family.

After Gideon died, the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals. They made Baal-Berith their god.

Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a brave warrior. His mother was a prostitute, but Gilead was his father.

However, she got angry at him and went home to her father’s house in Bethlehem in Judah. When she had been there four months,

He also built high places on the hills of Judah; he encouraged the residents of Jerusalem to be unfaithful to the Lord and led Judah away from the Lord.

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:

At the end of seventy years the Lord will revive Tyre. She will start making money again by selling her services to all the earth’s kingdoms.

The Lord asked, “How can I leave you unpunished, Jerusalem? Your people have rejected me and have worshiped gods that are not gods at all. Even though I supplied all their needs, they were like an unfaithful wife to me. They went flocking to the houses of prostitutes.

“‘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 became his.

You also took your beautiful jewelry, made of my gold and my silver I had given to you, and made for yourself male images and engaged in prostitution with them.

“‘How sick is your heart, declares the sovereign Lord, when you perform all of these acts, the deeds of a bold prostitute.

When you built your chamber at the head of every street and put up your pavilion in every public square, you were not like a prostitute, because you scoffed at payment.

All prostitutes receive payment, but instead you give gifts to every one of your lovers. You bribe them to come to you from all around for your sexual favors!

You were different from other prostitutes because no one solicited you. When you gave payment and no payment was given to you, you became the opposite!

They will burn down your houses and execute judgments on you in front of many women. Thus I will put a stop to your prostitution, and you will no longer give gifts to your clients.

“Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Will you defile yourselves like your fathers and engage in prostitution with detestable idols?