And your lewdness shall be requited upon you means Oholah and Oholibah will be punished for their sexual immorality in the way they deserve. Requited means “repaid” or “paid back” (see 9.10). Some translations make God the agent of the punishment here; for example, Good News Translation says “I will punish you for your immorality.”

And you shall bear the penalty for your sinful idolatry means almost the same thing as the previous clause (see the comments on 16.58). Sinful idolatry (literally “the sins of your idols”) refers to the sisters’ sinful worship of false gods. For the Hebrew word rendered idolatry (“foul idols” in New Jerusalem Bible), see 6.4, where it is translated “idols.” This clause may be expressed as “You sinned by worshiping idols, and I will punish you for that.” A possible model for the first two clauses of this verse is “I will punish you as you deserve for your immorality, and you will pay the price for the way you have sinned by worshiping idols.”

And you shall know that I am the Lord GOD: As a result of this punishment the people will remember and acknowledge God again. The conjunction and may be rendered “Then” (Good News Translation, New International Version, New Century Version). It is not absolutely certain to whom the pronoun you refers. The Hebrew pronoun for you is masculine plural, so it may refer only to Ezekiel’s audience in Babylonia. If so, it may be better for translators to separate this clause from the previous sentence, perhaps even making it a new paragraph. But often in the latter part of this chapter, Ezekiel has interchanged the masculine and feminine pronouns, a practice that happened often in late Biblical Hebrew. Therefore it would not be wrong to interpret this pronoun as referring to the two sisters. For the Lord GOD, see verse 22.

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 .