Ezekiel chapter 23

vs 11

I guess you could always live in hope that if one group of your people does something heinously bad, and gets punished for it, that the other group will take stock and curb their idiocy. Too much to ask, apparently, because Jerusalem is, if anything, worse than Samaria.

vs 12

So Jerusalem actually chased Assyrian power in the exact same way that Samaria did. Strike one, guys - that's what we call making the exact same mistake.

vs 13

And this is not a mistake that God takes lightly - it is a direct betrayal of him. They have become traitors, almost going to other people asking them to free them from their God.

vs 14

And so the blue team gets replaced for the red team, the Babylonians.

vs 15

Once again their armies and leaders cut a pretty impressive figure, not to mention looking totally foreign.

vs 16

So basically, as soon as a new power was in town, Jerusalem wanted to be part of it, wanted to be aligned to it. Remember, Israel as a whole was a tiny little place when you compare it to empires like Babylon and Egypt. But they didn't, couldn't, trust God to keep them safe. So they play politics like all the other nations.

vs 17

This is really the kicker for Jerusalem. They go to Babylon, they whore themselves to Babylon, they actually end up a tribute nation of Babylon, and then they try and rebel against Babylon.

vs 18

This for God is just too much, if everything so far wasn't already. Not only had his people betrayed him, but now they were betraying the people they betrayed him for, and not even to come back to him!

vs 19

As far as God was concerned, all of the time with David as their king, all of the time they spent under Law, with the temple, with God as their first, was wiped - they were back to pre-Exodus times.

vs 20

So crude... basically meaning Israel loved power, wealth, prosperity, and so loved Egypt, and then Assyria, and now Babylon, and then Egypt again.