Ezekiel 16:21

Brenton's Septuagint

and didst slay thy children, and gavest them up in offering them to them for an expiation.

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
You slaughtered my children and gave them up when you passed them through the fire to the images.

Hebrew Names Version
that you have slain my children, and delivered them up, in causing them to pass through [the fire] to them?

King James Version
That thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them?

English Standard Version
that you slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire to them?

New American Standard Bible
"You slaughtered My children and offered them to idols by making them pass through the fire.

New Century Version
You killed my children and offered them up in fire to the idols.

Amplified Bible
"You slaughtered My children and offered them up to [worthless] idols, forcing them to pass through the [hideousness of the] fire.

World English Bible
that you have slain my children, and delivered them up, in causing them to pass through [the fire] to them?

Geneva Bible (1587)
That thou hast slaine my children, and deliuered them to cause them to passe through fire for them?

New American Standard Bible (1995)
"You slaughtered My children and offered them up to idols by causing them to pass through the fire.

Legacy Standard Bible
You slaughtered My children and gave them up to idols by causing them to pass through the fire.

Berean Standard Bible
You slaughtered My children and delivered them up through the fire to idols.

Contemporary English Version
You slaughtered my children, so you could offer them as sacrifices.

Complete Jewish Bible
killing my children, handing them over and setting them apart for [these idols]?

Darby Translation
that thou didst slay my children and give them up in passing them over to them?

Easy-to-Read Version
You slaughtered my sons and then passed them through the fire to those false gods.

George Lamsa Translation
That you have slaughtered my children, and offered them to the idols after you had been ravished by them.

Good News Translation
without taking my children and sacrificing them to idols?

Lexham English Bible
And you slaughtered my children, and you gave them to be sacrificed to them.

Literal Translation
You have slaughtered My sons, and you gave them to cause these to pass through the fire for them.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
that thou slayest my children, and geuest them ouer, to be bret vnto them?

American Standard Version
that thou hast slain my children, and delivered them up, in causing them to pass through the fire unto them?

Bible in Basic English
That you put my children to death and gave them up to go through the fire to them?

JPS Old Testament (1917)
that thou hast slain My children, and delivered them up, in setting them apart unto them?

King James Version (1611)
That thou hast slaine my children, and deliuered them to cause them to passe through the fire for them?

Bishop's Bible (1568)
And thou hast slayne my chyldren, and deliuered them, to cause them to passe [through the fire] for them.

English Revised Version
that thou hast slain my children, and delivered them up, in causing them to pass through the fire unto them?

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Thou offridist my sones, and yauest hem, and halewidist to tho.

Update Bible Version
that you have slain my sons, and delivered them up, in causing them to pass through [the fire] to them?

Webster's Bible Translation
That thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through [the fire] for them?

New English Translation
you slaughtered my children and sacrificed them to the idols.

New King James Version
that you have slain My children and offered them up to them by causing them to pass through the fire?

New Living Translation
Must you also slaughter my children by sacrificing them to idols?

New Life Bible
You killed My children and gave them as burnt gifts to false gods.

New Revised Standard
You slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering to them.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Yea thou didst slay my children, - And didst deliver them up. that they should be caused to pass through the fire unto them.

Douay-Rheims Bible
Thou hast sacrificed and given my children to them, consecrating them by fire.

Revised Standard Version
that you slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire to them?

Young's Literal Translation
That thou dost slaughter My sons, And dost give them up in causing them to pass over to them?

Contextual Overview

¹⁵ Thou didst trust in thy beauty, and didst go a-whoring because of thy renown, and didst pour out thy fornication on every passer by. ¹⁶ and thou didst take of thy garments, and madest to thyself idols of needlework, and didst go a-whoring after them; therefore thou shalt never come in, nor shall the like take place. ¹⁷ And thou tookest thy fair ornaments of my gold and of my silver, of what I gave thee, and thou madest to thyself male images, and thou didst commit whoredom with them. ¹⁸ And thou didst take thy variegated apparel and didst clothe them, and thou didst set before them mine oil and mine incense. ¹⁹ And thou tookest my bread which I gave thee, (yea I fed thee with fine flour and oil and honey) and didst set them before them for a sweet-smelling savour: yea, it was so, saith the Lord. ²⁰ And thou tookest thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou borest, land didst sacrifice these to them to be destroyed. Thou didst go a-whoring as if that were little, ²¹ and didst slay thy children, and gavest them up in offering them to them for an expiation. ²² This is beyond all thy fornication, and thou didst not remember thine infancy, when thou wast naked and bare, and didst live though defiled in thy blood. ²³ And it came to pass after all thy wickedness, saith the Lord, ²⁴ that thou didst build thyself a house of fornication, and didst make thyself a public place in every street;

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

my children: Psalms 106:37

to pass: Leviticus 18:21, Leviticus 20:1-5, Deuteronomy 18:10, 2 Kings 17:17, 2 Kings 21:6, 2 Kings 23:10

Reciprocal: Leviticus 20:2 - giveth 2 Kings 16:3 - made his son 2 Chronicles 28:3 - burnt Jeremiah 2:34 - Also Jeremiah 19:5 - to burn Jeremiah 32:35 - they built Ezekiel 16:20 - thy sons Ezekiel 16:36 - and by Ezekiel 16:38 - shed Ezekiel 16:45 - that loatheth Ezekiel 20:26 - in that Ezekiel 23:37 - have also Micah 6:7 - shall John 8:41 - we have

Gill's Notes on the Bible

That thou hast slain my children,.... By creation, as all born into the world are; and by national adoption, as all the Jewish children were; and particularly the firstborn were eminently his, and which are here designed, as Jarchi interprets it; for they were the children that were slain and sacrificed to Molech; see Ezekiel 20:26;

and delivered, them to cause them to pass through [the fire] for them? for the sake of idols, for the worship of them; this they did before they were slain; they first caused them to pass through between two fires, and so dedicated them to the idol, and then slew them; or slew them by burning them in the fire, or by putting them into the arms of the "idol", made burning hot.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Borne unto me - me is emphatic. The children of Yahweh have been devoted to Moloch. The rites of Moloch were twofold;

(1) The actual sacrifice of men and children as expiatory sacrifices to, false gods.

(2) The passing of them through the fire by way of purification and dedication.

Probably the first is alluded to in Ezekiel 16:20; the two rites together in Ezekiel 16:21.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Ezekiel 16:21. To cause them to pass through the fire — Bp. Newcome quotes a very apposite passage from Dionysius Halicarnass. Ant. Rom. lib. i., s. 88, p. 72, and marg. p. 75, Edit. Hudson: Μετα δε τουτο, πυρκαΐας προ των σκηνων γενεσθαι κελευσας, εξαγει τον λεων τας φλογας ὑπερθρωσκοντα,της ὁσιωσεως των μιασματων ἑνεκα. "And after this, having ordered that fires should be made before the tents, he brings out the people to leap over the flames, for the purifying of their pollutions." This example shows that we are not always to take passing through the fire for being entirely consumed by it. Among the Israelites this appears to have been used as a rite of consecration.