Few chapters in the Bible provide a more forceful illustration of the love of God than this one, which, incidentally, is the longest chapter in the book. The Lord finds a female child abandoned by her parents, who are described in verse 3 as an Amorite and a Hittite. This may be understood as a reference to the pre-Israelite inhabitants of Jerusalem. This child the Lord rescues, raises, and eventually pledges his troth to in marriage. He lavishes great riches on her. Instead of appreciating and loving her Lord, she squanders her dowry on fornication, engages in ritual filicide with her offspring, seeks other lovers (foreign alliances), and in the process becomes worse than all other harlots. Some twenty times in chapter 16, Jerusalem is connected with the words “prostitute,” “prostitution…