Nahum 3:4

Hebrew Bible

2 The chariot drivers will crack their whips; the chariot wheels will shake the ground. The chariot horses will gallop; the war chariots will bolt forward! 3 The charioteers will charge ahead; their swords will flash and their spears will glimmer! There will be many people slain; there will be piles of the dead and countless casualties—so many that people will stumble over the corpses. 4 Because you have acted like a wanton prostitute—a seductive mistress who practices sorcery, who enslaves nations by her harlotry, and entices peoples by her sorcery 5 “I am against you,” declares the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “I will strip off your clothes! I will show your nakedness to the nations and your shame to the kingdoms. 6 I will pelt you with filth; I will treat you with contempt; I will make you a public spectacle.

Revelation 17:2

New Testament

1 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke to me. “Come,” he said, “I will show you the condemnation and punishment of the great prostitute who sits on many waters, 2 with whom the kings of the earth committed sexual immorality and the earth’s inhabitants got drunk with the wine of her immorality. 3 So he carried me away in the Spirit to a wilderness, and there I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. 4 Now the woman was dressed in purple and scarlet clothing, and adorned with gold, precious stones, and pearls. She held in her hand a golden cup filled with detestable things and unclean things from her sexual immorality.

 Notes and References

"... The Old Testament often speaks of spiritual adultery, especially in the context of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God (e.g., Leviticus 17:7; Isaiah 1:21; Jeremiah 3:1–14), but occasionally other people’s also (Isaiah 26:16–18; Nahum 3:4). James addresses an audience experiencing economic oppression, some of whom are tempted to favor the growing resistance against Rome. He warns his audience that God’s wisdom is gentle and peaceful in contrast to the selfish and striving wisdom of the world and the devil (James 3:13–18). Those who seek violent solutions to their situation, while claiming to follow God (James 4:1–2), pursue their own desires rather than God’s will (James 4:3) and hence are spiritual “adulteresses” (James 4:4). James undoubtedly alludes to the common image of Israel’s harlotry here, not to a narrower allusion like Proverbs 30:20. James offers a solution to this adultery: instead of trying to follow both God’s values and those of the world, they should submit to God and resist the devil (James 4:7–10), seeking peace with their neighbors (compare James 4:11–12) ..."

Martin, Ralph P. Dictionary of the Later New Testament & Its Developments (pp. 1042-1043) InterVarsity Press, 1997

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