“Therefore behold I will gather all your lovers, with whom you have taken pleasure, and all those you have loved, with all those you have hated, I will even gather them against you on every side, and will reveal your nakedness to them that they may see all your nakedness.”
Prostitutes who offer themselves in public gathering places where drinking also goes on, which would be the case with cult prostitutes, are often subjected to degrading treatment by those who have previously made use of their services, in a state of drunkenness. It was probably a familiar sight in Jerusalem. That is what is in mind here. A prostitute subjected to humiliation and degradation by her drunken and debased former ‘lovers'.
I remember having a case described to me which took place in a Cyprus bar, where the prostitute, whom many of them had previously ‘used', was seized by a gang of drunken soldiers, who used a bottle neck to perform degrading acts on her. It had even disgusted the far from puritanical (non-Christian) soldier who told me of it.
Thus would Israel suffer from those all around her, both her ‘allies' (those whom she loved) and her enemies who were waiting to pounce (those whom she hated). They would surround her, gaze on her abject state, and abuse her, a vivid picture of the coming destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon and subsequent devastation of the land by Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites and Philistines (Ezekiel 25).
Note the ‘you have taken pleasure'. It is a rare prostitute who takes pleasure in what she does. They usually despise their clients, although they are sensible enough to hide it. But Israel was so licentious that she had actually taken pleasure in her disgraceful behaviour.