“And I will set my jealousy against you, and they will deal with you in fury. They will take away your nose and your ears, and your residue will fall by the sword. They will take away your sons and your daughters and your residue will be devoured by the fire. They will also strip you of your clothes, and take away your fair jewels.”
The punishment is portrayed as occurring because of Yahweh's jealousy over their following other gods, but is dreadful, following Babylonian patterns (so its dreadfulness is by the design of men). As David said, they would have been better to have fallen directly into the hand of God. The cutting off of the nose and ears was a punishment for adulterous women, for they were the parts flaunted by her nose and ear rings, and also for captured prisoners of war, so that the picture is doubly applicable. It is apt. She had flaunted her beauty to her lovers, and now her lovers take it away from her. In other words she would lose her beauty. The taking away of sons and daughters was also a punishment that could happen to a disgraced woman. She loses all that is precious in life. But it was also a picture of the final exile of the people.
These two illustrations are then paralleled with their actual fulfilment in their falling by the sword and their suffering in the burning of their city (see 2 Kings 24:10-16; 2 Kings 25:11; Daniel 1:1; 2 Kings 25:18-21). That is, all who remain after the terrible things that will come on her. Ezekiel then returns to the parable picturing it all in terms of the stripping away of her beautiful clothing and her prized jewels. All the glories and luxuries she had enjoyed from Babylon, and the wealth that she had built up, would be stripped away. Her unfaithfulness will have brought her nothing. This may partly have in mind the loss of the Temple treasures (2 Kings 25:13-17; 2 Chronicles 36:18).