Oholah’s failure to trust in Jehovah and to remain faithful to him proved to be calamitous. Ezekiel 23:9, 10 states: “[Jehovah] gave her into the hand of those passionately loving her, into the hand of the sons of Assyria, toward whom she had lusted. They were the ones that uncovered her nakedness. Her sons and her daughters they took, and her they killed even with sword. And she came to be infamy to women, and acts of judgment were what they executed upon her.” Yes, Jehovah abandoned the northern kingdom to the brutal Assyrians who had passionately loved to force a worldly alliance upon it. The Assyrians acted as executioners of divine judgment, giving symbolic Oholah the treatment that an adulterous wife deserved. They “uncovered her nakedness” by stripping the land of her Israelite children, deporting them far off. And with the sword of war they killed her as a political nation, destroying her national capital Samaria, in 740 B.C.E. Oholah indeed became “infamy to women,” that is, to pagan kingdoms of that time. They looked down upon her as a nation that had gained shameful infamy for herself and they shuddered at her fate

The record of Christendom being like that of ancient Oholah and Oholibah, she cannot escape calamity. Just as the former lovers of Oholah and Oholibah brought them to ruin, Christendom will likewise suffer destruction at the hands of her former lovers. Jehovah God will see to that. This is confirmed in the last book of the Bible, where the world empire of false religion, “Babylon the Great,” is portrayed as a prostitute. (Rev. 17:3-6) Regarding what former political lovers will do to “Babylon the Great,” Revelation 17:16 states: “These will hate the harlot and will make her devastated and naked, and will eat up her fleshy parts and will completely burn her with fire.”

Oholibah’s course, like that of her sister, was bound to lead to calamity. Jehovah was disgusted with the kingdom of Judah. This meant that, as in the case of the northern kingdom, Jehovah would abandon the symbolic Oholibah into the hands of her passionate lovers. (Ezek. 23:18-23) So wicked was Oholibah that Jehovah could speak of her former lover, the Babylonians, as “righteous men,” that is, comparatively “righteous men.” They were also “righteous men” in the sense that they would execute Jehovah’s righteous judgment. (Ezek. 23:43-49) Through his prophet Ezekiel, Jehovah foretold what these lovers would do to Oholibah:

“They will set themselves against you all around, and I will give judgment over to them, and they must judge you with their judgments. And I will express my ardor against you, and they must take action against you in rage. Your nose and your ears they will remove, and the remainder of you will fall even by the sword. Your sons and your daughters they themselves will take, and the remainder of you will be devoured by the fire. And they will certainly strip off you your garments and take away your beautiful articles. And I shall actually cause your loose conduct to cease from you, and your prostitution carried from the land of Egypt; and you will not raise your eyes to them, and Egypt you will remember no more.”​—Ezek. 23:24-27.

Accordingly, Jehovah God would allow Oholibah’s lovers to apply his judicial decisions according to their own cruel way. They would ruin Oholibah’s beautiful face or national appearance. Her anointed king and other prominent officials, who were like the “very breath of [her] nostrils,” would be taken away. (Lam. 4:20) Her priests, judges and literary men, who were like ears to listen and give balance to the headship of the nation, would also be removed violently. What was remaining of adulterous Oholibah would fall by the executional sword of the victorious Babylonians. Those of her sons and daughters surviving would be taken captive and enslaved. The remainder of her, in the way of nonportable material properties, would be “devoured by the fire.” Oholibah would thus be stripped of her garments and beautiful articles with which she practiced her allurements as a nation.

Oholibah may have thought that she could escape this calamity by regretting her association with Babylon and turning away in disgust. The Babylonians, however, would not forget her engagements with them. And her turning away from the Babylonians and coming to hate them did not clear her record with Jehovah God. Oholibah was not repenting over her spiritual adultery. She was still inclined to violate her covenant with Jehovah and adulterously enter alliances with pagan nations, such as Egypt, to ensure her safety. Hence Jehovah would expose her nakedness by laying bare her record as a shameless prostitute. Like her sister Oholah, she would be forced to drink a cupful of national destruction and deportation from her land. Oholibah would be forced to pay to the full the divine penalty for her unfaithfulness to God, as if having to gnaw and crunch the “earthenware fragments” of her cup in order to imbibe every last drop of moisture that had soaked into them. To the maliciously minded nations round about, Oholibah would become an “object of laughter and derision.” All these things came upon her in 607 B.C.E. when Jerusalem was destroyed in fulfillment of Jehovah’s judgment.​—Ezek. 23:28-35.