“They give gifts to all prostitutes, but you give your gifts to all your lovers, and bribe them, that they may come to you on every side for your whoredoms. And the contrary is in you from other women in your whoredoms, in that none follows you to commit whoredom. And whereas you give hire, and no hire is given to you, you are therefore the opposite of them.”
Israel's unforgivable state is emphasised. Rather than being the one who was paid, she actually pays in order to indulge in prostitution. She bribes men to prostitute her, in order to ensure that she can be satiated. There is no other prostitute like this. She is unique. No other follows her example. Indeed her behaviour in paying instead of receiving payment demonstrates that she is the opposite of them. She has debased herself worse than a prostitute.
Two thoughts possibly lie behind this example. Firstly that Judah first came to the notice of Assyria, before Assyria had showed any belligerence towards her, when she sent payments and appealed for her help, and then openly welcomed her gods without any constraint being put on her (2 Kings 16:7-16; Hosea 8:9), followed by her willingness to expose herself to Babylon, even under a good king (2 Kings 12-15). And secondly that she did indeed seem to welcome any gods which came to her notice, without any persuasion being necessary, so that she gave rather than received.
So Ezekiel has outlined a number of reasons for the coming destruction of Jerusalem and the exile; excessive vanity (Ezekiel 16:15 a), spiritual prostitution (Ezekiel 16:15-19), human sacrifices (Ezekiel 16:20-21), forgetting God's goodness and unmerited favour (Ezekiel 16:22), exposing her prostitution openly (Ezekiel 16:23-25), trusting to pagan nations rather than to Yahweh (Ezekiel 16:26-29), and a weak heart and mind that had cast off all moral restraints (Ezekiel 16:30-34).