Bible Strands
Isaiah 57:3
“But come here, you sons of a sorceress, you offspring of adulterers and prostitutes!
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The prophet delivers Yahweh’s indictment to the covenant community immediately after describing the peaceful death of the upright and immediately before exposing the people’s mocking arrogance. The address targets those who claim covenant status while actively practicing idolatry and spiritual infidelity.
The words — קִרְבוּ (kir.vu-) means "draw near," and עֹנְנָה ('o.ne.Nah) translates literally to "soothsayer" or "sorceress." These terms frame the summons as a legal confrontation rather than a worship invitation.
The thread — The metaphor of adulterous offspring and spiritual prostitution anchors Hosea 1:2 as a covenant unfaithfulness pattern, reappears in Matthew 16:4 when Jesus labels a demanding generation as adulterous, and structures the moral divide in 1 John 3:10 between the children of God and the children of the devil.
Why it lands — The text forces a direct assessment of one’s actual spiritual lineage before facing divine judgment. It requires the reader to stop rationalizing idolatrous practices and recognize that inherited covenant titles do not override practiced rebellion.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore.
Cross-references
- Matthew 16:4 A wicked and adulterous generation demands a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” Then He left them and went away.
- 1 John 3:10 By this the children of God are distinguished from the children of the devil: Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is anyone who does not love his brother.
- Hosea 1:2 When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, He told him, “Go, take a prostitute as your wife and have children of adultery, because this land is flagrantly prostituting itself by departing from the LORD.”
- James 4:4 You adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever chooses to be a friend of the world renders himself an enemy of God.
- Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
- Isaiah 1:21 See how the faithful city has become a harlot! She once was full of justice; righteousness resided within her, but now only murderers!
- Isaiah 45:20 Come, gather together, and draw near, you fugitives from the nations. Ignorant are those who carry idols of wood and pray to a god that cannot save.
- Joel 3:9 Proclaim this among the nations: “Prepare for war; rouse the mighty men; let all the men of war advance and attack!
- Matthew 3:7 But when John saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his place of baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
- Matthew 12:34 You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.