Adultery
Across the UPDV, adultery is named both as a specific transgression — a married person taking another's spouse — and as the head of a wider field of sexual offenses (whoring, impurity, sexual depravity, lust). The Decalogue forbids it; the holiness code criminalizes it; the wisdom books warn the young man away from it; the prophets use it as the ruling figure for covenant infidelity to Yahweh; the Gospels pull it inward to the heart and the divorce court; the apostolic letters put it on the kingdom-exclusion lists alongside idolatry and greed; and the apocalyptic visions close the canon with adulterous Babylon and Jezebel under judgment.
The commandment and its prohibitions
The seventh word of the Decalogue is the simplest form: "You will not commit adultery" (Ex 20:14), repeated as "Neither will you commit adultery" (De 5:18). The holiness code spells out the meaning: "And you will not have any sex with your associate's wife, to defile yourself with her" (Le 18:20). Daughters are not to be pushed into whoring: "Don't profane your daughter, to make her a whore; lest the land fall to whoring, and the land become full of wickedness" (Le 19:29). Pagan-cult prostitution is also banned: "There will not be a pagan whore among the daughters of Israel, neither will there be a pagan whore among the sons of Israel" (De 23:17).
The Gospels and the apostolic writers cite the commandment in the same flat form. Jesus rehearses it for the rich-young-ruler: "Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal" (Mr 10:19; cf. Lu 18:20). Paul folds it into the love command: "For this, You will not commit adultery, You will not kill ... is summed up in this word, namely, You will love your fellow man as yourself" (Ro 13:9). James presses the unity of the law from the same angle: "For he who said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if you do not commit adultery, but kill, you have become a transgressor of the law" (Jas 2:11).
Penalties under the law
The Mosaic legislation makes adultery and certain related offenses capital. "And the man who commits adultery with another man's wife--who commits adultery with his fellow man's wife--the adulterer and the adulteress will surely be put to death" (Le 20:10). Sex with a father's wife or daughter-in-law carries the same sentence: "both of them will surely be put to death; their blood will be on them ... they did something perverted" (Le 20:11-12). A priest's daughter who profanes herself by whoring "will be burned with fire" (Le 21:9).
Deuteronomy 22 spells out a graded code. A man who slanders his wife as not a virgin is fined and bound to her for life (De 22:13-19). A wife found not to have been a virgin is stoned at her father's door, "because she has wrought depravity in Israel" (De 22:21). A man and a married woman caught together both die: "both of them, the man who plowed the woman, and the woman: so you will put away the evil from Israel" (De 22:22). A betrothed virgin assaulted in the city is presumed complicit unless she cried out; assaulted in open country, she is held innocent and only the man dies (De 22:23-27). A man who lies with an unbetrothed virgin must pay her father fifty shekels and marry her without right of divorce (De 22:28-29; cf. Ex 22:16-17). Mt. Ebal's curses cover the incestuous cases: "Cursed be he who plows his father's wife ... his sister ... his mother-in-law" (De 27:20, 22-23).
For a husband whose suspicion outruns his evidence, Numbers prescribes the ordeal of jealousy. The priest brings the woman before Yahweh, makes her swear, and gives her "the water of bitterness that causes the curse" to drink. "If she is defiled, and has committed a trespass against her husband ... her body will swell, and her thigh will fall away: and the woman will be a curse among her people. And if the woman is not defiled, but is clean; then she will be innocent, and will conceive seed" (Nu 5:11-29).
The patriarchal narratives anticipate the same severity even before the Sinai code. Yahweh warns Abimelech against Sarah: "you are but a dead man, because of the woman whom you have taken. For she is a man's wife" (Ge 20:3); when restored, Abimelech in turn protects Isaac and Rebekah by decree: "He who touches this man or his wife will surely be put to death" (Ge 26:11). Judah, told that Tamar his daughter-in-law has whored, says, "Bring her forth, and let her be burned" (Ge 38:24) — the same penalty Leviticus would later codify.
Later prophetic and apostolic narratives extend the principle. Ahab's and Zedekiah's false prophecy is paired with adultery, "whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire ... because they have wrought depravity in Israel, and have committed adultery with their fellow men's wives" (Jer 29:22-23). Paul tells the Corinthians to expel the man living with his father's wife: "to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord" (1Co 5:5).
Wisdom's portrait of the seducer
Proverbs returns to the same scene again and again — the foreign or strange woman who flatters a young man toward death. "To deliver you from the strange woman, Even from the foreigner who flatters with her words; Who forsakes the best friend of her youth, And forgets the covenant of her God: For her house inclines to death, And her paths to the spirits of the dead; None who enter her return again" (Pr 2:16-19).
The fifth chapter draws the contrast between the strange woman and the wife of one's youth: "For the lips of a strange woman drop honey, And her mouth is smoother than oil: But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, Sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; Her steps take hold on Sheol" (Pr 5:3-5). Over against her, "Drink waters out of your own cistern, And running waters out of your own well ... Let your fountain be blessed; And rejoice in the wife of your youth ... And be ravished always with her love. For why should you, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, And embrace the bosom of a foreigner?" (Pr 5:15-20).
The sixth chapter answers the temptation by image: "Don't lust after her beauty in your heart; Neither let her take you with her eyelids" (Pr 6:25). "Can a man take fire in his bosom, And his clothes not be burned? Or can one walk on hot coals, And his feet not be scorched? So he who enters his fellow man's wife; Whoever has any sex with her will not be unpunished ... He who commits adultery with a woman is void of understanding: He who does it destroys his own soul" (Pr 6:27-32).
The seventh chapter dramatizes a particular transaction. A young man "void of understanding" passes through the street "in the twilight, in the evening of the day"; the woman, "with the attire of a whore, and wily of heart," meets him with kisses and sacred-meal pretext, then the perfumed bed: "Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning ... For the man is not at home; He has gone on a long journey." "He goes after her right away, As an ox goes to the slaughter ... Until an arrow strikes through his liver" (Pr 7:5-23). The ninth chapter gives the matching parable: foolish woman seated in her doorway, calling, "Stolen waters are sweet, And bread [eaten] in secret is pleasant. But he does not know that the spirits of the dead are there; That her guests are in the depths of Sheol" (Pr 9:13-18).
Other proverbs round out the picture. "The mouth of strange women is a deep pit: He who is abhorred of Yahweh will fall in it" (Pr 22:14). "For a whore is a deep ditch; And a foreign woman is a narrow pit. Yes, she lies in wait as a robber" (Pr 23:27-28). "Whoever loves wisdom rejoices his father; But he who is a shepherd of whores wastes [his] substance" (Pr 29:3). Of the "four things too wonderful," the climax is the adulterous woman: "She eats, and wipes her mouth, And says, I have done no wickedness" (Pr 30:18-20). King Lemuel's mother charges him: "Don't give your strength to women, Nor your ways to [those women who] destroy kings" (Pr 31:3).
Job, on his own behalf, takes the matching oath. "I made a covenant with my eyes; How then should I look at a virgin?" (Job 31:1). "If my heart has been enticed to a woman, And I have laid wait at my fellow man's door; Then let my wife grind to another, And let others have sex with her. For that were a heinous crime; Yes, it were an iniquity to be punished by the judges: For it is a fire that consumes to Destruction" (Job 31:9-12). Of the adulterer in his class, Job observes the stealth: "The eye also of the adulterer waits for the twilight, Saying, No eye will see me: And he disguises his face. In the dark they dig through houses ... For the morning is to all of them as thick darkness" (Job 24:15-17).
Ben Sira presses the same wisdom-tradition counsel into a near-checklist. "Do not come near to a strange woman; Or else you will fall into her snares" (Sir 9:3). "Do not sleep with a female musician; Or else distracting admiration will burn you" (Sir 9:4). "Do not give your soul to a prostitute; Or else you will turn away your inheritance" (Sir 9:6). "Do not taste with her husband ... Or else you will incline your heart to her; And your blood will incline to destruction" (Sir 9:9). "Wine and women cause the heart to be lustful" (Sir 19:2). The man who "goes astray from his own bed" tells himself, "Who sees me? Darkness is around me, and the walls hide me, And no man sees me, of what shall I be afraid? The Most High does not remember sins" (Sir 23:18) — the same self-deception Job named. The unfaithful wife, in turn, "is disobedient to the law of the Most High ... she trespasses against her own husband ... she commits adultery through her fornication, And brings in children by a stranger" (Sir 23:22-23). Among the three the writer's soul hates: "the old man who is an adulterer" (Sir 25:2). "The whoredom of a woman is in the lifting up of her eyes. And she is known by her eyelids" (Sir 26:9). The modest woman is the counterweight: "Grace upon grace is a modest woman, And there is no weight [of gold] worth a self-controlled soul" (Sir 26:15).
Lust of the eye
Behind the act, the wisdom and apostolic traditions both name a faculty: the eye. John the Apostle gathers it under one heading: "For all that is in the world, the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the vainglory of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world" (1Jn 2:16).
Job's covenant is exactly this oath of the eyes (Job 31:1). Proverbs warns, "Don't lust after her beauty in your heart; Neither let her take you with her eyelids" (Pr 6:25). Sirach is blunt: "Hide your eye from a graceful woman; And do not look at beauty that is not yours. On account of a woman many have been destroyed; And so she will burn her lovers with fire" (Sir 9:8). "Do not think about a virgin; Or else you will be snared by her fines" (Sir 9:5). "Your eyes will make a fool of yourself in a vision" (Sir 9:7). "Do not give me a proud look, And turn away lust from me" (Sir 23:5). "Look well after a shameless eye, And do not marvel if it trespasses against you" (Sir 26:11). "Remember that an evil eye is an evil thing; God has created nothing more evil than the [evil] eye, Therefore it weeps because of all things" (Sir 31:13).
The narrative of David and Bathsheba is the canon's case-study in the lust of the eye. From the king's roof "he saw a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful to look at. And David sent and inquired after the woman ... And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in to him, and he plowed her, for she was purified from her uncleanness; and she returned to her house. And the woman became pregnant" (2Sa 11:2-5). The act follows the look — and the cover-up follows the act, until Nathan brings the sentence (see Penalties under the law above; cf. 2Sa 12:10-14).
Sexual immorality more broadly
Around the strict sense of adultery the texts pile a wider vocabulary — whoring, impurity, sexual depravity, immoral sexual passion. Paul tells the Thessalonians, "For this is the will of God, [even] your⁺ sanctification, that you⁺ abstain from whoring; that each one of you⁺ know how to possess himself of his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not by immoral sexual passion, even as the Gentiles who don't know God ... For God called us not for impurity, but in sanctification" (1Th 4:3-7). Marriage is to be honored over against this whole field: "[Let] marriage [be] had in honor among all, and [let] the bed [be] undefiled: for whores and adulterers God will judge" (Heb 13:4). "But, because of the whoring going on, let each have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband" (1Co 7:2).
The kingdom-exclusion lists run together adultery and the adjacent sins. "Or don't you⁺ know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Don't be deceived: neither whores, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, will inherit the kingdom of God" (1Co 6:9-10). "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are [these]: whoring, impurity, sexual depravity ... envyings, drunkenness, revelings, and things similar to these; of which I forewarn you⁺, even as I did forewarn you⁺, that those who participate in such things will not inherit the kingdom of God" (Ga 5:19-21). "But whoring, all impurity, or greed, don't let it even be named among you⁺ ... For this you⁺ know for sure, that anyone who is a whore, or unclean, or greedy (that is, an idolater) has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no man deceive you⁺ with empty words: for because of these things the wrath of God comes on the sons of disobedience" (Eph 5:3-6). "Put to death therefore your⁺ members which are on the earth: whoring, impurity, immoral sexual passion, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry" (Cl 3:5). "Law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and unruly ... for whores, for homosexuals, for menstealers, for liars, for false swearers" (1Ti 1:9-10). Mark's catalogue from inside the heart matches: "evil thoughts proceed, whoring, thefts, murders, adulteries" (Mr 7:21).
The body itself supplies the argument. "All things are lawful for me; but not all things are expedient ... the body is not for whoring, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body ... Don't you⁺ know that your⁺ bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ, and make them members of a whore? God forbid. Or don't you⁺ know that he who sticks to the whore is one body? For, The two, he says, will become one flesh ... Stop being a whore. Every sin that a man does is outside the body; but he who goes whoring sins against his own body" (1Co 6:12-18).
The sanctification call is everywhere paired with the desire that has to be tracked back. "Walk by the Spirit, and you⁺ will not fulfill the desire of the flesh" (Ga 5:16). "Flee youthful lusts, and follow after righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart" (2Ti 2:22). "Beloved, I urge you⁺ as sojourners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly desires, which war against the soul" (1Pe 2:11). "Then the desire, when it has conceived, bears sin: and the sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death" (Jas 1:15). The Christian past is meant to break: "For the time past may suffice to have worked the desire of the Gentiles, and to have walked in sexual depravity, erotic desires, winebibbings, revelings, carousings, and horrible idolatries: in which they think it strange that you⁺ do not run with [them] into the same excess of riot" (1Pe 4:3-4). The chaste woman serves the same end: "[to be] sober-minded, chaste, workers at home, kind, being in subjection to their own husbands, that the word of God not be blasphemed" (Ti 2:5). The hundred and forty-four thousand are described as "those who were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These [are] those who follow the Lamb wherever he may go" (Re 14:4).
Roman moral history is the foil. "Therefore God delivered them up in the desires of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies should be shamed among themselves ... and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, became passionate with each other, men with men, shamefully having sex together" (Ro 1:24, 27). "And even as they did not approve to have God in [their] knowledge, God delivered them up to a disapproved mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, maliciousness ... who, knowing the ordinance of God, that those who participate in such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also give their approval to those who participate in them" (Ro 1:28-32). "Let us walk becomingly, as in the day; not in reveling and drunkenness, not in promiscuity and sexual depravity, not in strife and jealousy" (Ro 13:13). The Corinthian past is granted but cancelled: "I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your⁺ flesh: for as you⁺ presented your⁺ members [as] slaves to impurity and to iniquity ... even so now present your⁺ members [as] slaves to righteousness to sanctification" (Ro 6:19). "Lest again when I come my God should humble me before you⁺, and I should mourn for many of those who have sinned before, and didn't repent of the impurity and whoring and sexual depravity in which they participated" (2Co 12:21). The Ephesian heathen contrast still holds the diagnosis: "no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk ... being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God ... who, feeling no more pain, delivered themselves up to sexual depravity, to work all impurity with greed. But you⁺ did not so learn Christ" (Eph 4:17-20). And 2Peter and Jude name the false teachers within the church on the same charge: those who "walk after the flesh in the desire of defilement" (2Pe 2:10), "having eyes full of adultery, and that can't cease from sin" (2Pe 2:14); "ungodly men, changing the grace of our God into sexual depravity" (Jude 4); "As Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, which committed sexual depravity and homosexuality as do these [men], are set forth as an example, serving a penalty of eternal fire" (Jude 7).
Jesus on adultery, divorce, and forgiveness
Jesus internalizes the commandment and tightens its application to remarriage.
The Markan and Lukan divorce sayings: "Whoever divorces his wife, and marries another, commits adultery against her: and if she herself divorced her husband, and marries another, she commits adultery" (Mr 10:11-12). "Everyone who divorces his wife, and marries another, commits adultery: and he who marries her who has been divorced from a husband commits adultery" (Lu 16:18). Paul agrees on the principle from the side of the wife: "if, while the husband lives, she is joined to another man, she will be called an adulteress: but if the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress" (Ro 7:3).
The diagnosis runs from inside outward: "For from inside, out of the heart of men, evil thoughts proceed, whoring, thefts, murders, adulteries" (Mr 7:21).
In John, Jesus exposes the Samaritan woman's history without naming the offense. "I have no husband. Jesus says to her, You said well, I have no husband: for you have had five husbands; and he whom you now have is not your husband: this you have said truly" (Jn 4:17-18).
The Gospels also record John the Baptizer's public charge against Herod's marriage to his brother's wife. "For Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold on John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife; for he had married her. For John said to Herod, It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife" (Mr 6:17-18); "but Herod the tetrarch, being reproved by him for Herodias his brother's wife, and for all the evil things which Herod had done" (Lu 3:19).
(The Gospel of John pericope of the woman taken in adultery, which Nave's lists under both "Penalties for" and "Forgiveness of," is excluded from UPDV.)
Adultery as figure of covenant infidelity
The prophets enlist the marriage figure for Yahweh's relation to Israel and Judah, and read every sliding away to other gods or other powers as adultery. Jeremiah opens with the marriage-law analogy: "If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from him, and becomes another man's, will he return to her again? Will not that land be greatly polluted? But you have whored with many companions; yet return again to me, says Yahweh. Lift up your eyes to the bare heights, and see; where haven't you been plowed? By the ways you have sat for them, as an Arabian in the wilderness; and you have polluted the land with your whoring and with your wickedness" (Jer 3:1-2).
The same prophet stitches adultery into the covenant catalogue: "Will you⁺ steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you⁺ have not known, and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered" (Jer 7:9-10). "How can I pardon you? Your sons have forsaken me ... they committed adultery, and they dwell at a whore's house. They were as fed horses roaming at large; everyone neighed after his fellow man's wife" (Jer 5:7-8). "For the land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing the land mourns" (Jer 23:10).
Hosea makes it the central image. "Hear the word of Yahweh, you⁺ sons of Israel; for Yahweh has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land. Swearing, lying, killing, stealing, and committing adultery are rampant; and blood is everywhere" (Hos 4:1-2). "Whoring and wine and new wine take away the understanding" (Hos 4:11). "They are all adulterers; they are as an oven heated by the baker" (Hos 7:4).
Ezekiel sustains the figure at length. Jerusalem the bride: "But you trusted in your beauty, and whored because of your renown, and poured out your whoring on everyone who passed by" (Eze 16:15). Her sentence is the adulteress's: "I will judge you, as women who break wedlock and shed blood are judged ... they will stone you with stones, and thrust you through with their swords. And they will burn your houses with fire" (Eze 16:38-41). The two sister-cities receive the matching verdict: "they will judge them with the judgment of adulteresses, and with the judgment of women who shed blood ... And the company will stone them with stones ... Thus I will cause lewdness to cease out of the land" (Eze 23:45-48). The just man is defined by the contrast: he "has not eaten on the mountains, neither has lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, neither has defiled his fellow man's wife" (Eze 18:5-6) — adultery and idolatry on the same line.
Isaiah uses the same charge against the diviner-class: "But draw near here, you⁺ sons of the psychic, the seed of the adulterer and the whore" (Isa 57:3-4).
Revelation closes the canon with the same figure pulled to its eschatological limit. Thyatira tolerates "the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess; and she teaches and seduces my slaves to go whoring, and to eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her time that she should repent; and she does not want to repent of her whoring. Look, I cast her into a bed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of her works" (Re 2:20-22). The trumpet-judgments mark the unrepentant: "they did not repent of their murders, nor of their witchcraft, nor of their whoring, nor of their thefts" (Re 9:21). Babylon the great is the archetypal adulteress-city: "the kings of the earth, who went whoring and lived wantonly with her, will weep and wail over her, when they look at the smoke of her burning" (Re 18:9-10). And the closing exclusion-lists place whoring outside the city: "for the fearful, and unbelieving ... and whores ... their part [will be] in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone" (Re 21:8); "Outside are the sissies, and the sorcerers, and the whores, and the murderers, and the idolaters" (Re 22:15).
Instances
Beyond the David / Bathsheba case under lust of the eye, the texts record a long sequence of episodes.
The Sodomites demand the visiting men: "Where are the men who came in to you this night? Bring them out to us, that we may have sex with them" (Ge 19:5-8).
Lot's daughters get him drunk and conceive by him: "they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and plowed her father" (Ge 19:31-38).
Shechem son of Hamor "took her, and plowed her, and violated her" — Dinah daughter of Jacob (Ge 34:2).
Reuben "went and plowed Bilhah his father's concubine: and Israel heard of it, and it was evil in his eyes" (Ge 35:22).
Judah, traveling, takes a woman he thinks is a wayside whore — his veiled daughter-in-law Tamar (Ge 38:1-24); when she is found pregnant he calls for her execution (38:24, see above) until she produces his pledge.
Potiphar's wife casts her eyes on Joseph and says, "Plow me." Joseph refuses: "how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?"; she finally seizes his garment, and he flees (Ge 39:7-12).
The Levite's concubine "prostituted against him, and went away from him to her father's house" (Jud 19:2); the Levite goes after her "to speak kindly to her, to bring her again" — Nave's lists this as the Old Testament's only forgiveness instance under this head.
The Gibeahites then demand the Levite himself, and on being given the concubine "had sex with her, and abused her all the night until the morning" (Jud 19:22-25), the atrocity that unleashes the Benjamite war.
Jephthah of Gilead "was the son of a whore: and Gilead begot Jephthah" (Jud 11:1).
Samson "went to Gaza, and there saw a whore, and entered her" (Jud 16:1).
The sons of Eli, while Eli was very old, "plowed the women who served at the door of the tent of meeting" (1Sa 2:22).
Amnon, sick with desire for his sister Tamar, lures her to his chamber and rapes her: "being stronger than she, he forced her, and plowed her. Then Amnon hated her with exceedingly great hatred" (2Sa 13:1-20).
Absalom in turn fulfills Nathan's announced sentence on his father in public sight: "they spread Absalom a tent on the top of the house; and Absalom entered his father's concubines in the sight of all Israel" (2Sa 16:22).
The Israelites at Sinai and at Peor function as collective instances. At Peor, "one of the sons of Israel came and brought to his brothers a Midianitish woman in the sight of Moses" (Nu 25:6). The prophets list the same catalogues against later generations: incest, adultery with the fellow man's wife, defilement of the daughter-in-law (Eze 22:9-11); the standing claim on the land contradicted by adultery (Eze 33:26); "they are all adulterers" (Hos 7:4). Jeremiah names false-prophet adulterers Ahab and Zedekiah (Jer 29:22-23, see above).
In the New Testament, Herod the tetrarch is the named royal instance, married to his brother Philip's wife Herodias, with John the Baptizer rebuking him (Mr 6:17-18; Lu 3:19, see above). The Samaritan woman's five husbands and current cohabitation are the named domestic instance (Jn 4:17-18). The Corinthian congregation harbored a man living with his father's wife, "such whoring as is not even among the Gentiles" (1Co 5:1) — Paul's prescribed remedy is excommunication unto repentance (1Co 5:1-13). The "Heathen" of Ephesians 4 and 1 Peter 4 stand in for the larger Gentile field the Christian past is to be renounced from (Eph 4:17-19; 1Pe 4:3).
The thread, OT to Apocalypse, holds: adultery is named as a specific transgression, embedded in a wider field of sexual and covenant infidelity, judged by the law of the people and by the Lord of the people, and finally — through the prophetic figure — as the very name of the unfaithfulness for which Yahweh charges and judges his bride.