35 For this cause, O loose woman, give ear to the voice of the Lord: 36 This is what the Lord has said: Because your unclean behaviour was let loose and your body uncovered in your loose ways with your lovers and with your disgusting images, and for the blood of your children which you gave to them; 37 For this cause I will get together all your lovers with whom you have taken your pleasure, and all those to whom you have given your love, with all those who were hated by you; I will even make them come together against you on every side, and I will have you uncovered before them so that they may see your shame. 38 And you will be judged by me as women are judged who have been untrue to their husbands and have taken life; and I will let loose against you passion and bitter feeling. 39 I will give you into their hands, and your arched room will be overturned and your high places broken down; they will take your clothing off you and take away your fair jewels: and when they have done, you will be uncovered and shamed. 40 And they will get together a meeting against you, stoning you with stones and wounding you with their swords. 41 And they will have you burned with fire, sending punishments on you before the eyes of great numbers of women; and I will put an end to your loose ways, and you will no longer give payment. 42 And the heat of my wrath against you will have an end, and my bitter feeling will be turned away from you, and I will be quiet and will be angry no longer. 43 Because you have not kept in mind the days when you were young, but have been troubling me with all these things; for this reason I will make the punishment of your ways come on your head, says the Lord, because you have done this evil thing in addition to all your disgusting acts.
44 See, in every common saying about you it will be said, As the mother is, so is her daughter. 45 You are the daughter of your mother whose soul is turned in disgust from her husband and her children; and you are the sister of your sisters who were turned in disgust from their husbands and their children: your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite. 46 Your older sister is Samaria, living at your left hand, she and her daughters: and your younger sister, living at your right hand, is Sodom and her daughters. 47 Still you have not gone in their ways or done the disgusting things which they have done; but, as if that was only a little thing, you have gone deeper in evil than they in all your ways. 48 By my life, says the Lord, Sodom your sister never did, she or her daughters, what you and your daughters have done. 49 Truly, this was the sin of your sister Sodom: pride, a full measure of food, and the comforts of wealth in peace, were seen in her and her daughters, and she gave no help to the poor or to those in need. 50 They were full of pride and did what was disgusting to me: and so I took them away as you have seen. 51 And Samaria has not done half your sins; but you have made the number of your disgusting acts greater than theirs, making your sisters seem more upright than you by all the disgusting things which you have done. 52 And you yourself will be put to shame, in that you have given the decision for your sisters; through your sins, which are more disgusting than theirs, they are more upright than you: truly, you will be shamed and made low, for you have made your sisters seem upright.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Ezekiel 16:35-52
Commentary on Ezekiel 16:1-58
(Read Ezekiel 16:1-58)
In this chapter God's dealings with the Jewish nation, and their conduct towards him, are described, and their punishment through the surrounding nations, even those they most trusted in. This is done under the parable of an exposed infant rescued from death, educated, espoused, and richly provided for, but afterwards guilty of the most abandoned conduct, and punished for it; yet at last received into favour, and ashamed of her base conduct. We are not to judge of these expressions by modern ideas, but by those of the times and places in which they were used, where many of them would not sound as they do to us. The design was to raise hatred to idolatry, and such a parable was well suited for that purpose.