Upon the beautiful background of Jehovah's love and mercy, there is now written the dark picture of Jerusalem's whoredoms, symbolical of her wicked idolatries. "But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and played the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was" (verse 15). It started all with pride. Jerusalem did not acknowledge the giver, who had made her great. Instead of worshipping in Jehovah's appointed way, they established the "high places" and conformed to all the wicked Canaanitish practices. The wickedness of the Amorites and Hittites, from which she came, were reproduced in her. Their little ones were given to Moloch as a sacrifice. "Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter, that thou hast slain thy children, and delivered them to pass through the fire for them?" (verses 20-21). From the Second Book of Kings we learn that Ahaz was the first king who committed this atrocity. "He made his son pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel" (2 Kings xvi:3). And Manasseh, the wicked son of a pious father, also followed the same horrible practice (2 Kings xxi:6). The historical books of Second Kings and Second Chronicles must be read to understand more fully the symbolical language used by Ezekiel and to learn the idolatry and degradation of Jerusalem. All Jehovah had given and bestowed upon her was devoted to practice this spiritual fornication. What Jehovah had done for her was forgotten. "And in all thine abominations and thy whoredoms thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and bare, and wast polluted in thy blood" (verse 22). But worse than that followed. Not enough that Jerusalem had her high places and revived the practices of the Canaanitish natives, she began to have also idolatrous intercourse with the idol-gods of Egypt, Assyria and Chaldea (verses 23-34). She sought them out and courted them all to increase her harlotry. So great became Jerusalem's abominations that the daughters of the Philistines became ashamed of her lewd way (verse 27). And while such was the religious degradation of Jerusalem in following the basest and most corrupt idolatries, a corresponding moral degradation was linked with it. All the rites of the Canaanites and the other nations consisted in the grossest immoralities. The most shameless and the vilest things of the flesh were practiced in the midst of the idolatrous city. "How is the faithful city become a harlot!" (Isaiah i:21). In the next section the Lord addresses her by that title and once more her judgment doom is announced. "Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord" (verse 35).