You also took your fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you: This clause refers to the gold and silver ornaments that God had given to the girl. See verses 11-13.

And made for yourself images of men: She melted down the ornaments and made images of men (“male images” in Good News Translation). Most translations understand these images of men to be “statues of men” (New Living Translation), but it is just as likely that they were statues of large, erect penises (so New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh with “phallic images”).

And with them played the harlot means she acted like a prostitute with these statutes, that is, she worshiped them. Played the harlot renders the same Hebrew verb as in verses 16 and 17, so there is no reason to change it to a word for “adultery,” as Good News Translation and New Living Translation have done. Nor should the force of the message be softened by using the verb “sinned,” as Contemporary English Version has done. However, it is clear that the sex referred to here is not physical sex with male statues or huge metal penises. In this verse sex is a metaphor for the way the people turned from God and worshiped idols. In translation, however, the sexual terminology should be kept if possible. A model that retains the imagery of this verse without relating it to idolatry explicitly is:

• You took the beautiful gold and silver jewelry I had given you and made it into idols for yourself in the shape of men [or, the shape of a penis], and you acted like a prostitute with them.

However, it is also possible to show that the sex is a metaphor for turning away from God through idol worship as follows:

• You made idols of men from the beautiful gold and silver jewelry I had given you, and you acted like a prostitute by worshiping them.

Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .