The Gospel According to Ezekiel, Chapter 16

The Shocking Nature of Unfaithfulness

This chapter contains graphic content intended to shock us into spiritual awareness of sin's true nature. Ezekiel 16 exposes unfaithfulness—not just as a "capital sin," but as violently abhorrent when it contradicts our profession of faith. Many categorize sins as big or small, excusing "lowercase" ones. Yet even unfaithfulness, trusted in something other than God, spirals into depravity. The chapter awakens us to abandon pursuits outside God.

Imagine shaking someone from chugging poison or waking them from a nightmare. This is God's method: shock to reveal what we're doing.

God's Mercy to the Abandoned Infant

Ezekiel 16:1-14
Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, “Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abominations and say, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Your origin and your birth are from the land of the Canaanite, your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. As for your birth, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water for cleansing; you were not rubbed with salt or even wrapped in cloths. No eye looked with pity on you to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you. Rather you were thrown out into the open field, you being abhorred on the day you were born.

“When I passed by you and saw you squirming in your blood, I said to you while you were in your blood, ‘Live!’ Yes I said to you while you were in your blood, ‘Live!’ I made you numerous like plants of the field. Then you grew up, became tall and reached the age for fine ornaments; your breasts were formed and your hair had grown. Yet you were naked and bare.

“Then I passed by you and saw you, and behold, you were at the time for love. So I spread My skirt over you and covered your nakedness. I also swore to you and entered into a covenant with you so that you became Mine,” declares the Lord God. Then I bathed you with water, washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil. I also clothed you with embroidered cloth and put sandals of porpoise skin on your feet; and I wrapped you with fine linen and covered you with silk. I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your hands and a necklace around your neck. I also put a ring in your nostril, earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your dress was of fine linen, silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour, honey and oil; so you were exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. Then your fame went out among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of My splendor which I bestowed on you,” declares the Lord God.

Nothing shocking yet—this is a divinely romantic tale surpassing Shakespeare. Jerusalem, personified as an abandoned infant wallowing in blood, receives God's unmerited pity. He saves her, raises her, and at marriageable age, covers her nakedness with His skirt, enters covenant, adorns her exquisitely, and elevates her to royalty. Her perfect beauty stems from God's splendor—His glory, majesty—clothing her worthlessness with His own.

Appropriate responses: gratitude in word and deed, devotion to this superior life over impending death.

The Bride's Faithless Prostitution

Ezekiel 16:15-22
“But you trusted in your beauty and played the harlot and poured out your harlotries on every passerby who might be willing. You took some of your clothes, made for yourself high places of various colors, and played the harlot on them, which should never come about nor happen. You also took your beautiful jewels made of My gold and of My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself male images that you might play the harlot with them. Then you took your embroidered cloth and covered them, and offered My oil and My incense before them. Also My bread which I gave you, fine flour, oil and honey with which I fed you, you would offer before them for a soothing aroma; so it happened,” declares the Lord God. “Moreover, you took your sons and daughters whom you had borne to Me and sacrificed them to idols to be devoured. Were your harlotries so small a matter? You slaughtered My children and offered them up to idols by causing them to pass through the fire. And besides all your abominations and harlotries you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare and squirming in your blood.”

Instead of gratitude, she trusts in her God-given beauty, prostituting herself. She uses His gifts—jewels, cloth, oil, incense, even children—for idolatry. "Trusted" means faith misplaced from God to His gifts, twisting good into occasions for sin. Faith remains, but the object shifts. When creation captivates more than Creator, commitment to God erodes. Like Israel post-Exodus, forgetting miracles, plundering Egypt's gold for a calf in the wilderness—God leads to dependence, yet they complain.

Salvation isn't mere entry; it's your entire life. Every moment demands enjoyment of God, abandonment of sin. Your deeds adorn or detract from Christ's bride eternally.

Judgment and Shame

Ezekiel 16:35-43, 44-52
“Therefore, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord: Thus says the Lord God, ‘Because your lewdness was poured out and your nakedness uncovered through your harlotries with your lovers and with all your detestable idols, and because of the blood of your sons which you gave to idols, therefore, behold, I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, even all those whom you loved and all those whom you hated. So I will gather them against you from every direction and will expose your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness. Thus I will judge you like women who commit adultery or shed blood; and I will bring on you the blood of wrath and jealousy. I will also give you into the hands of your lovers, and they will tear down your shrines, demolish your high places, strip you of your clothes, take away your jewels, and will leave you naked and bare. They will incite a crowd against you and they will stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords. They will burn your houses with fire and execute judgments on you in the sight of many women; and I will stop you from committing harlotry, and you also shall no longer pay your lovers. So I will calm My fury against you and My jealousy will depart from you, and I will be pacified and angry no more...”

“Behold, everyone who quotes proverbs will quote this proverb concerning you, saying, ‘Like mother, like daughter.’ You are the daughter of your mother, who loathed her husband and children. You are also the sister of your sisters, who loathed their husbands and children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite. Now your older sister is Samaria, who lives north of you with her daughters; and your younger sister, who lives south of you, is Sodom with her daughters. Yet you have not merely walked in their ways or done according to their abominations, but, as if that were too little, you acted more corruptly in all your conduct than they. As I live,” declares the Lord God, “Sodom, your sister and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done... This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy. Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I removed them when I saw it. Furthermore, Samaria did not commit half of your sins, for you have multiplied your abominations more than they. Thus you have made your sisters appear righteous by all your abominations which you have committed.”

Judgment reverses her state: lovers turn against her, stripping adornments, leaving her naked and bare. Even pagans shame her lewdness. Punishment seems total annihilation—like death in marriage. Yet God calms His fury, not because she's destroyed, but purposefully.

Jerusalem exceeds Sodom and Samaria in corruption—faithlessness worse than outright wickedness. Better never to know righteousness than abandon it (cf. Hebrews warnings, 2 Peter). God grieves sin in His people.

The Shocking Restoration

Ezekiel 16:60-63
“Nevertheless, I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you receive your sisters, both your older and your younger, and I will give them to you as daughters, but not because of your covenant. Thus I will establish My covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, so that you may remember and be ashamed and never open your mouth anymore because of your humiliation, when I have provided atonement for all that you have done,” declares the Lord God.

Shocking: after prostitution worse than Sodom, God restores! He remembers His covenant, establishes an everlasting one, gives sisters as daughters—not for her merit, but His. Shame silences her shamelessness, fostering reverence for God over sin.

Punishment aims: shame sin, obsession with atonement (God's self-atonement), trust God alone for satisfaction, exclude boasting, affirm total dependence. No circumstance rivals spiritual deadness; in Christ, eternity awaits sinless joy. Reject pragmatism's quick fixes—God quenches deepest thirst. The bride's beauty, redemption, sin-fighting: all God's work.