Adulterous wife…!: In the parable the girl is God’s wife, so when she had sex with other men, she was committing adultery. Probably all languages will have a word for an adulterous person, specifically a married person who has sexual relations with someone they are not married to.

Who receives strangers instead of her husband means she had sex with men who were not her husband instead of with her husband. But strangers here has a double meaning—not only does it refer to men who were not her husband, but it also suggests that they were foreigners, that is, the Egyptians, Assyrians and Babylonians who were mentioned in verses 26-29. In some languages it may be difficult to find a word that keeps both of these ideas, but in others this will not be a problem since stranger often means someone from another place.

Most translations make it clear that God addresses the girl here by beginning with “You are like a woman who commits adultery…” (Good News Translation) or “You adulterous wife…” (Revised English Bible). If necessary, it is also acceptable to use the second person for the girl in the whole verse; for example, Contemporary English Version has “You are nothing but an unfaithful wife who would rather have sex with strangers than with your own husband” (similarly New Century Version).

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 .