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fragrance. What good things you received from me, he says, these you offered to those adulterous demons, on the one hand adorning and embellishing them, and on the other hand performing sacrifices and libations for them. And it came to pass, says the Lord Adonai. (20) And you took your sons and your daughters, whom you bore, and you sacrificed them to be consumed. Then the rebuke comes ironically. "As if you whored but a little," From which it is clear, and exceedingly plain, that here he calls the worship of idols fornication. 21, 22. And you slaughtered, he says, your children and you gave them up in your offering of them as an averting sacrifice to them. This is beyond all your fornication and your abominations. For in reality the most disgusting and most defiled of all things is the unjust slaughter of children, which those madmen performed as an averting sacrifice, contriving for themselves, as they senselessly supposed, a deliverance from evils. "And you did not remember the day of your infancy, when you were naked and unseemly, and defiled in your own blood, and 81.941 you lived. You did not take into your mind, he says, the former things, how when you were naked, and deprived of all providence and stained with the blood of idols, I took you and washed you and made you to enjoy life and all care. 23. And it came to pass after all your iniquities, Woe, woe to you, says the Lord Adonai. He says that you reap lamentation and mourning as the fruit of this ungrateful mind. Then he recounts her impiety more broadly. 24, 25. And you built for yourself a brothel, and you made for yourself an exposure in every square. And at the head of every way you built your brothels, and you defiled your beauty, and you spread your legs to every passerby. One might learn these things more clearly both from the history of the Judges and from the writing of the Kingdoms; for everywhere, both in the houses and in the marketplaces, they set up the shrines of the idols; and they filled their bodies with this impiety, and even in the temple of God itself they built altars to the offending demons, and set up images and likenesses of demons. And this the Master also charges here, calling the idolatrous precincts a "brothel." And convicting the excess of such fornication, he shows her set forth simply for all who wish to have intercourse, by which she filled with idols the roads, and the squares, and the marketplaces, and she defiled the beauty of piety, and she received every passerby into such licentiousness, now worshiping the gods of the Egyptians, and now those of the Assyrians and Chaldeans. And teaching this he added: And you multiplied your fornication. (20) And you whored after the sons of Egypt your neighbors, those great of flesh, and you whored in many ways to provoke me to anger. And again, figuratively, he called "great of flesh" those who were excessively devoted to the worship of idols. For these worshiped goats, and oxen, and sheep, and dogs and apes, and crocodiles, and ibises, and hawks. 27. And behold, I will stretch out my hand upon you, and I will take away your statutes, and I will deliver you to the souls of those who hate you, the daughters of foreigners, who turn aside from your way, in which you have been impious. I will move my hand, he says, to discipline, and I will strip you of the splendor of the law, and I will make you an object of gloating for your enemies, and I will cause the neighboring cities to laugh at you, which did not emulate the excess of your impiety. 28, 29. And you whored, he says, after the sons of Assur, and not even so were you satisfied, 81.944 and you whored, and you were not filled. And you multiplied your fornications toward the land of Canaan, and to the Chaldeans, and not even with these were you satisfied. Each nation, he says, served its own idols; but you, having worshiped the gods of all, and embracing the worship of idols everywhere, have not yet even today had your fill of impiety. 30. With what shall I cleanse your heart, says the Lord Adonai, since you do all these things, the works of a brazen harlot? What punishment, he says, worthy of your impiety shall I bring upon you? with what

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εὐωδίας. Ἃ παρ' ἐμοῦ, φησὶν, ἐλάμβανες ἀγαθὰ, ταῦτα τοῖς μοιχοῖς ἐκεί νοις προσέφερες δαίμοσι, τοῖς μὲν αὐτοὺς κατακο σμοῦσα, καὶ καταποικίλλουσα, τοῖς δὲ τὰς θυσίας καὶ τὰς σπονδὰς ἐπιτελοῦσα. Καὶ ἐγένετο, λέγει Ἀδωναῒ Κύριος. (κʹ) Καὶ ἔλαβες τοὺς υἱούς σου καὶ τὰς θυγατέρας σου, ἃς ἐγέννησας, καὶ ἔθυσας αὐτοῖς εἰς ἀνάλω σιν. Εἶτα κατ' εἰρωνείαν ὁ ἔλεγχος. "Ὡς μικρὰ ἐξεπόρνευσας," Ἐξ ὧν δῆλον, καὶ λίαν σαφὲς, ὅτι πορνείαν ἐνταῦθα τὴν τῶν εἰδώλων θεραπείαν καλεῖ. καʹ, κβʹ. Καὶ ἔσφαξας, φησὶ, τὰ τέκνα σου καὶ ἔδωκας αὐτὰ ἐν τῷ ἀποτροπιάζεσθαί σε αὐτὰ αὐτοῖς. Τοῦτο παρὰ πᾶσαν τὴν πορνείαν καὶ τὰ βδελύγματά σου. Πάντων γὰρ τῷ ὄντι καὶ μυσα ρώτατον, καὶ μιαρώτατον, ἡ ἄδικος τῶν παίδων σφαγὴ, ἣν ἐπετέλουν οἱ μεμηνότες ἀποτροπιαζόμενοι, καὶ κακῶν ἀπαλλαγὴν, ὡς ἀνοήτως ὑπελάμβανον, σφίσιν αὐτοῖς μηχανώμενοι. "Καὶ οὐκ ἐμνήσθης τῆς ἡμέρας τῆς νηπιότητός σου, ὅτε ἦσθα γυμνὴ, καὶ ἀσχημονοῦσα, καὶ πεφυρμένη ἐν τῷ αἵματί σου, καὶ 81.941 ἔζησας. Οὐκ ἔλαβες, φησὶν, εἰς νοῦν τὰ πρότερα, ὅπως σε γυμνὴν οὖσαν, καὶ πάσης προνοίας ἐστερη μένην καὶ τῷ εἰδωλικῷ αἵματι πεφοινιγμένην, λαβὼν ἀπέλουσά τε καὶ ζωῆς καὶ πάσης κηδεμονίας ἀπο λαῦσαι πεποίηκα. κγʹ. Καὶ ἐγένετο μετὰ πάσας τὰς ἀδικίας σου, Οὐαὶ, οὐαί σοι, λέγει Ἀδωναῒ Κύριος. Καρπὸν δέ φησι τῆς ἀγνώμονος γνώμης ταύτης δρέπῃ θρῆ νον καὶ ὀδυρμόν. Εἶτα πλατύτερον αὐτῆς διέξεισι τὴν ἀσέβειαν. κδʹ, κεʹ. Καὶ ᾠκοδόμησας σεαυτῇ οἴκημα πορνι κὸν, καὶ ἐποίησας σεαυτῇ ἔκθεμα ἐν πάσῃ πλατείᾳ. Καὶ ἐπ' ἀρχῆς πάσης ὁδοῦ ᾠκοδόμησας τὰ πορνεῖά σου, καὶ ἐλυμήνω τὸ κάλλος σου, καὶ διήγαγες τὰ σκέλη σου παντὶ παρόδῳ. Ταῦτα σαφέστερον ἄν τις καταμάθοι, καὶ ἐκ τῆς τῶν Κριτῶν ἱστορίας, καὶ ἐκ τῆς τῶν Βασιλειῶν συγγραφῆς· πανταχοῦ γὰρ καὶ ἐν ταῖς οἰκίαις, καὶ ἐν ταῖς ἀγο ραῖς, ἔστησαν τὰ τῶν εἰδώλων ἱδρύματα· καὶ τὰ σώματα δὲ ταύτης τῆς ἀσεβείας ἐπλήρωσαν, καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ δὲ τῷ νεῷ τοῦ Θεοῦ τοῖς ἀλιτηρίοις δαίμοσιν ᾠκοδόμησαν βωμοὺς, ἰνδάλματά τε καὶ ἀπεικά σματα δαιμόνων ἱδρύσαντο. Τοῦτο δὲ κἀνταῦθα ὁ ∆εσπότης κατηγορεῖ, "οἴκημα πορνικὸν" τὰ εἰδωλικὰ τεμένη προσαγορεύων. Τὴν δὲ τῆς τοιαύτης πορνείας ὑπερβολὴν διελέγχων, δείκνυσιν αὐτὴν ἅπασιν ἁπλῶς τοῖς συγγενέσθαι βουλομένοις προκειμένην, δι' ὧν ἐπλήρωσεν εἰδώλων καὶ τὰς ὁδοὺς, καὶ τὰς πλα τείας, καὶ τὰς ἀγορὰς, καὶ τὸ τῆς εὐσεβείας ἐλυμή νατο κάλλος, καὶ πάντα πάροδον εἰς τὴν τοιαύτην ἀκολασίαν ὑπεδέξατο, νῦν μὲν τοὺς τῶν Αἰγυπτίων, νῦν δὲ τοὺς τῶν Ἀσσυρίων καὶ Χαλδαίων προσκυνή σασα θεούς. Καὶ τοῦτο διδάσκων ἐπήγαγε· Καὶ ἐπλήθυνας τὴν πορνείαν σου. (κʹ.) Καὶ ἐξεπόρνευσας ἐπὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς Αἰγύπτου τοὺς ὁμοροῦντάς σοι τοὺς μεγαλοσάρκους, καὶ πολ λαχῶς ἐξεπόρνευσας τοῦ παροργίσαι με. Τροπικῶς δὲ πάλιν μεγαλοσάρκους, τοὺς μεθ' ὑπερβολῆς τῇ τῶν εἰδώλων θεραπείᾳ προστετηκότας ὠνόμασεν. Οὗτοι γὰρ καὶ τράγους, καὶ βόας, καὶ πρόβατα, κύνας τε καὶ πιθήκους, καὶ κροκοδείλους, καὶ ἴβεις, καὶ ἱέρα κας προσεκύνησαν. κζʹ. Καὶ ἰδοὺ ἐκτενῶ τὴν χεῖρά μου ἐπὶ σὲ, καὶ ἐξαρῶ τὰ νόμιμά σου, καὶ παραδώσω σε εἰς ψυχὰς μισούντων σε, θυγατέρας ἀλλοφύλων, τὰς ἐκκλινούσας ἀπὸ τῆς ὁδοῦ σου, ἧς ἠσέ βησας. Κινήσω, φησὶν, εἰς παιδείαν τὴν χεῖρά μου, καὶ γυμνώσω σε τῆς τοῦ νόμου λαμπρότητος, καὶ ἐπίχαρτόν σε τοῖς ἐχθροῖς καταστήσω, καὶ τὰς ἐκ γειτόνων πόλεις ἐπιγελᾷν σοι ποιήσω, αἳ τὴν τῆς σῆς ἀσεβείας ὑπερβολὴν οὐκ ἐζήλωσαν. κηʹ, κθʹ. Καὶ ἐξεπόρνευσας, φησὶν, ἐπὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς Ἀσσοὺρ, καὶ οὐδὲ οὕτως ἐνεπλήσθης, 81.944 καὶ ἐξεπόρνευσας, καὶ οὐκ ἐνεπίμπλω. Καὶ ἐπλή θυνας τὰ πορνεῖά σου πρὸς γῆν Χαναὰν, καὶ εἰς τοὺς Χαλδαίους, καὶ οὐδὲ ἐν τούτοις ἐνεπλή σθης. Ἕκαστον, φησὶν, ἔθνος ἰδίοις εἰδώλοις ἐδού λευσε· σὺ δὲ τοὺς ἁπάντων προσκυνήσασα θεοὺς, καὶ τῶν πανταχοῦ εἰδώλων τὴν θεραπείαν ἀσπαζομένη, κόρον τῆς ἀσεβείας οὐδέπω καὶ τήμερον ἔλαβες. λʹ. Τίνι καθαριῶ τὴν καρδίαν σου, λέγει Ἀδω ναῒ Κύριος, ἐν τῷ ποιῆσαί σε πάντα ταῦτα ἔργα γυναικὸς πόρνης παῤῥησιαζομένης; Ποίαν, φη σὶν, ἀξίαν τῆς ἀσεβείας ἐπαγάγω σοι τιμωρίαν; ποίῳ