For they have committed adultery, and blood is upon their hands: God states two charges against the sisters immediately. They are adultery and “murder” (Good News Translation). Their adultery consisted of being unfaithful to God by worshiping idols. Blood is upon their hands means they were guilty of murder.

With their idols they have committed adultery: For the Hebrew word rendered idols (“foul idols” in New Jerusalem Bible), see 6.4. Contemporary English Version uses nonfigurative language here by saying “They have been unfaithful by worshiping idols.” This is a good model if using adultery would confuse readers, but otherwise translators should try to keep this imagery.

And they have even offered up to them for food the sons whom they had borne to me: Compare 16.20-21 and 20.26. The sisters were murderers because they even killed their own children as sacrifices to the false gods. Child sacrifice was practiced by the Canaanite people among whom the Israelites lived, but the Old Testament always condemned it. They have even offered up to them for food means that when the sisters sacrificed their children to the false gods, they thought it was a way of feeding the gods. Sons is better rendered “children” (Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version) in this context. Whom they had borne to me highlights the fact that God had a marriage relationship with Israel, so God claimed the children of Oholah and Oholibah as his own.

A model for this verse is:

• For they have committed adultery against me by worshiping the idols of false gods. And they have committed murder by killing their children and giving them to the false gods as if they were food for them. Those were my children too!

Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .