After reading the account of Samaria and Jerusalem’s continued spiritual adultery with idols, the last third of chapter 23 describes their consequences and punishment for such detestable practices against the Lord. This passage doesn’t have quite the same glimmer of hope, but it does have a message for us.
Read Ezekiel 23:31-34
- God applied the principle of individual responsibility to Israel.
- Since they chose to follow in Samaria’s steps, they would receive the same punishment.
- Jerusalem drank the same cup of punishment as Samaria because she chose the same promiscuity against the Lord.
- The cup was large and deep with much scorn from surrounding nations.
- The drought would fill Israel with sorrow, ruin, desolation.
- God declared they would drain the cup and receive full punishment.
- In their great sorrow and disgust, they would break the cup to pieces.
- The Lord spoke and it would happen.
What is the significance of God’s principle of individual accountability for us?
Read Ezekiel 23:35.
- Israel forgot the Lord and placed Him out of sight behind her back.
- He would leave Israel to bear the consequences for prostitution.
“Cursed is anyone who makes an idol—a thing detestable to the Lord, the work of skilled hands—and sets it up in secret.” (Deuteronomy 27:15)
How might we place the Lord out of sight in our lives?
What idols do we create and set up in secret?
Read Ezekiel 23:36-39.
- The Lord invited Ezekiel to confront Samaria and Jerusalem with their detestable ways.
- They committed spiritual adultery with their idolatry.
- They even sacrificed children to pagan gods, something not all other nations practiced.
- This referred to the actual process of human sacrifices to false gods.
- The fire would devour their children as fuel, or food eaten by evil.
- They desecrated the Lord’s sanctuary and defiled the Sabbath.
- They held no regard or respect for the Lord.
Read Ezekiel 23:40-45.
- They invited drunkards from the desert to celebrate with incense and oil dedicated to the Lord.
- They feasted with a noisy, carefree, evil crowd.1
- These verses with multiple words for adultery and prostitution describe Jerusalem’s numerous spiritual adulteries, wickedness, and improper relationships with foreign nations.
- Rulers would judge them and sentence them to the punishment for adultery.
What does spiritual adultery look like today?
Read Ezekiel 23:46-49.
- A multitude would gather to inflict evil upon them, to stone them and destroy them with acts of war and violence.2
- The Lord would end their wicked idolatry by removing them from the land.
- The word picture here is of clear cutting, or clearing timber,3 which leaves only desolation.
- May any who would seek to follow the Lord Almighty take note and not follow Israel’s idolatry and spiritual adultery.
- Then they would know I AM is the Lord.
- The Lord is a just and jealous God.
- Paul wrote to believers at Corinth,
I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. (2 Corinthians 11:2-3)
- James wrote further clarification,
You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. (James 4:4)
- The prophet Joel’s words are as applicable for us as they were for Israel.
“Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. (Joel 2:13) 
What might be our consequences today for idolatry?
How can Ezekiel’s message serve as instruction for us?
What is the significance for us that the Lord is a just and jealous God?
What hope do we find in this passage?
- Warren Baker, D.R.E., Eugene Carpenter, Ph.D. The Complete WordStudy Dictionary: Old Testament. (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2003), Baker 1145
- Ibid., 298
- Ibid., 161