Lexicon :: Strong's H2181 - zānâ

About three months later Judah was told, “Tamar your daughter-in-law has played the [role of a] prostitute, and she is with child because of her immorality.” So Judah said, “Bring her out and let her be burned [to death as punishment]!”

‘Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, so that the land will not fall to prostitution and become full of wickedness.

Israel settled and remained in Shittim, and the people began to play the prostitute with the women of Moab [by being unfaithful to God].

Joshua the son of Nun sent two men as scouts secretly from Shittim, saying, “Go, view the land, especially [fn]Jericho [the walled city].” So they went and came to the house of a prostitute named Rahab, and lodged there.

But Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the prostitute’s house and bring the woman and all that she has out of there, as you have sworn to her.”

Then it came about, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the Israelites again played the prostitute with the Baals, and made Baal-berith their god.

Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a brave warrior, but he was the son of a prostitute. Gilead was the father of Jephthah.

Then Samson went to Gaza and saw a prostitute there, and went in to her.

But they acted treacherously against the God of their fathers and played the prostitute with the gods of the peoples of the land, whom God had destroyed before them.

For behold, those who are far from You will perish;

You have destroyed all those who are unfaithful and have abandoned You.

In this way they became unclean in their practices;

They played the prostitute in their own deeds [by giving their worship, which belongs to God alone, to other “gods”].

For on account of a prostitute one is reduced to a piece of bread [to be eaten up],

And the immoral woman hunts [with a hook] the precious life [of a man].

And there a woman met him,

Dressed as a prostitute and sly and cunning of heart.

For a prostitute is a deep pit,

And an immoral woman is a narrow well.

A man who loves [skillful and godly] wisdom makes his father joyful,

But he who associates with prostitutes wastes his wealth.

How the faithful city has become a prostitute [idolatrous, despicable],

She who was full of justice!

Right standing with God once lodged in her,

But now murderers.

Now in that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, like the days of one king. At the end of seventy years it will happen to Tyre as in the prostitute’s song:

“But come here, you sons of a sorceress [raised in deception and superstition],

Offspring of an adulterer and a prostitute.

“For long ago you broke your yoke [in deliberate disobedience]

And tore off your bonds [of the law that I gave you];

You said, ‘I will not serve and obey You!’

For on every high hill

And under every green tree

You have lain down [in idolatrous worship] like a [compliant] prostitute.

That is to say, “If a man divorces his wife

And she goes [away] from him

And becomes another man’s [wife],

Will he return to her again? [Of course not!]

Will not that land [where such a thing happened] be completely desecrated?

But you [rebelled against Me and you] are a prostitute with many lovers;

Yet you turn to Me.” says the LORD.

“Therefore the showers have been withheld,

And there has been no spring rain.

Yet you have the forehead (appearance) of a prostitute;

You refuse to be ashamed.

Moreover, the LORD said to me in the days of Josiah the king [of Judah], “Have you seen what that faithless Israel has done—how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there she was a prostitute?

“Why should I [overlook these offenses and] forgive you?

Your children have abandoned (rejected) Me

And sworn [their oaths] by those who are not gods.

When I had fed them until they were full [and bound them to Me by a promise],

They committed [spiritual] adultery,

Assembling in troops at the houses of prostitutes (idols).

“But you trusted in and relied on your beauty and prostituted yourself [in idolatry and its debauched rituals] because of your fame, and you poured out your immoralities on every [willing] passer-by and your beauty was his [as you worshiped the idols of the Gentile nations].