Immerse: Prophets - Flipbook - Page 350
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IMMERSE
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PROPHETS
16:38-58
gather together all your allies—the lovers with whom you have sinned,
both those you loved and those you hated—and I will strip you naked
in front of them so they can stare at you. I will punish you for your mur
der and adultery. I will cover you with blood in my jealous fury. Then I
will give you to these many nations who are your lovers, and they will
destroy you. They will knock down your pagan shrines and the altars
to your idols. They will strip you and take your beautiful jewels, leaving
you stark naked. They will band together in a mob to stone you and cut
you up with swords. They will burn your homes and punish you in front
of many women. I will stop your prostitution and end your payments to
your many lovers.
“Then at last my fury against you will be spent, and my jealous anger
will subside. I will be calm and will not be angry with you anymore. But
first, because you have not remembered your youth but have angered me
by doing all these evil things, I will fully repay you for all of your sins, says
the Sovereign Lord. For you have added lewd acts to all your detestable
sins. Everyone who makes up proverbs will say of you, ‘Like mother, like
daughter.’ For your mother loathed her husband and her children, and
so do you. And you are exactly like your sisters, for they despised their
husbands and their children. Truly your mother was a Hittite and your
father an Amorite.
“Your older sister was Samaria, who lived with her daughters in the
north. Your younger sister was Sodom, who lived with her daughters in
the south. But you have not merely sinned as they did. You quickly sur
passed them in corruption. As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord,
Sodom and her daughters were never as wicked as you and your daughters.
Sodom’s sins were pride, gluttony, and laziness, while the poor and needy
suffered outside her door. She was proud and committed detestable sins,
so I wiped her out, as you have seen.
“Even Samaria did not commit half your sins. You have done far more
detestable things than your sisters ever did. They seem righteous com
pared to you. Shame on you! Your sins are so terrible that you make your
sisters seem righteous, even virtuous.
“But someday I will restore the fortunes of Sodom and Samaria, and I
will restore you, too. Then you will be truly ashamed of everything you
have done, for your sins make them feel good in comparison. Yes, your
sisters, Sodom and Samaria, and all their people will be restored, and at
that time you also will be restored. In your proud days you held Sodom in
contempt. But now your greater wickedness has been exposed to all the
world, and you are the one who is scorned—by Edom and all her neigh
bors and by Philistia. This is your punishment for all your lewdness and
detestable sins, says the Lord.
