12 August 2022

Ezekiel writes:
The word of the Lord was addressed to me:
Make known to Jerusalem her abominations…
‘You grew exceedingly beautiful, fit to be a queen.
Your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty,
for it was perfect because of my splendour that I had bestowed on you, says the Lord God.
‘But you trusted in your beauty, and played the whore because of your fame,
and lavished your whorings on any passer-by.’

From Ezekiel 16: 1-15, 60, 63 (NRSV)

This is another tough reading from Ezekiel. Before this extract, the Lord has spoken of Jerusalem’s weakness and vulnerability until the Lord intervened. She is described as an abandoned girl-child who grew up to become the beloved of the Lord. He lavished great love upon her and uses the image of clothing her in glorious clothes to describe how he had made her a place of beauty. But she had allowed her beauty to attract others and had become unfaithful to the one who had loved and cherished her.

• • How does the image of a woman clothed in beauty speak to you of God’s love for Jerusalem?
  • How does her unfaithfulness highlight the depth of the rupture of her relationship with God?

Spend time today pondering the imagery in today’s reading – and the way in which beauty and power can be corrupted.