Throughout the Scriptures, God's relationship with His people is portrayed as a marriage, where Jesus Christ is the Husband and His people are His wife. When Israel broke its covenant with God, this act was likened to breaking the marriage bond, signifying spiritual harlotry. The prophet Ezekiel extensively used the marriage metaphor to illustrate Israel's unfaithfulness, dedicating significant passages to describe the perversity of Israel's relationship with God in sexual terms. Ezekiel portrays two sisters, Oholah representing Samaria and Oholibah representing Jerusalem, who became prostitutes in Egypt, symbolizing their turn to foreign religious beliefs. God laments that Oholah lusted after Assyrian soldiers, even while still married to Him, leading to her being given over to sin, humiliated, and killed. Oholibah, representing Judah, similarly rejected the marriage covenant by being attracted to Babylonian influences, and faced judgment for her unfaithfulness as well. Other prophets also drew parallels between Israel's unfaithfulness and a broken marriage covenant. Jeremiah recalls a time when God's relationship with Israel was marked by devotion, but later describes Israel's actions as spiritual adultery, equating idolatry to adultery under every green tree. Isaiah connects idolatry with adultery, noting that God divorced His wife Israel due to her unfaithfulness, yet speaks of future salvation as a restoration of the marriage relationship, linking it to a covenant of peace. The Pentateuch reflects God's jealousy, an emotion fitting for an exclusive relationship like marriage, highlighting the seriousness of spiritual fidelity. In the New Testament, the marriage covenant between God and His people continues as a central theme. The apostle Paul expresses concern for the Corinthians, warning against spiritual adultery through tolerance of false doctrines. He strives to keep the church spiritually undefiled from the enticements of other religious beliefs, viewing the relationship as a betrothal to Christ. This betrothal signifies a serious commitment, reflecting the church's role as the spiritual bride of Christ, called to remain faithful in preparation for the ultimate divine marriage.

God describes His relationship with a specific woman, Jerusalem, which stands for all Israel, using the language of marriage, a covenant relationship to One to whom she was to be faithful. Despite the intimacy of this bond, Israel's faithlessness is intensified by the exclusivity of God's relationship with her, as He entered into no similar covenant with any other nation in all the history of mankind. Because of the great gifts and revelations bestowed upon her, Israel's responsibility and ultimately her deviance were the greatest on earth, leading to her being identified as the preeminent harlot of the Bible. God acknowledges that Jerusalem, representing all Israel, is great in political, economic, and military power, with influence so vast that only she can hold the Beast in check and make it do her bidding until God's time comes for Israel to be humbled. Unfortunately, her power is not pure, as she is also great in whoredoms, religious confusion, and deviance from her responsibility to God. The scope of her influence is wide-ranging, over many nations, as she sits in authority upon many waters, the Beast, and seven mountains, giving orders and being served, while remaining a distinct, powerful, and influential people in contrast to the diverse multitudes of the Beast.

The concept of harlotry, as depicted in Scripture, carries a profound spiritual significance, particularly in the relationship between Israel and God. In the book of Hosea, the Lord speaks of Israel's great harlotry by departing from Him, portraying Israel as a faithless wife and a rebellious child. This metaphor of harlotry signifies sexual wantonness and, in a spiritual context, idolatry, reflecting extreme faithlessness to the covenant vows with God. God is depicted as a faithful Husband and a loving, longsuffering Parent, while Israel fails in carrying out responsibilities within this sacred relationship, an act God labels as adultery and harlotry. The Hebrew term zanah, translated as harlotry, implies a habitual, wanton way of life rather than a singular act of adultery, ultimately pointing to spiritual idolatry. Linked with wine and new wine in Hosea, this spirit of harlotry is shown to enslave the heart, leading Israel astray to seek counsel from idols and causing them to play the harlot against their God. This faithless spirit destroys discretion and understanding, contrasting with the wisdom gained from meditating on God's Word and obeying His commandments. Israel's national sin, as highlighted in Hosea, reveals a character flaw of deceitful faithlessness in social, economic, and cultural spheres. This faithlessness extends to a lack of steadfast love and a distant relationship with God, marked by a failure to acknowledge Him despite having general knowledge of His existence and way. The pervasive spirit of harlotry within the culture fosters an inability to remain faithful to God, mate, country, employer, or contracts, reflecting a constant pursuit of self-pleasure and an inherent dissatisfaction that cannot be quenched. This spiritual harlotry, driven by the influence of satan's spirit, perverts human tastes and necessitates a conversion to enjoy the benefits God intends.

Any given doctrine must be built layer by layer, combining and comparing scriptures rather than allowing a single scripture to determine the doctrine. When we understand that porneia includes all the hideous perverted sexual sins that go beyond ordinary adultery- including bestiality, pedophilia, homosexuality, incest, and every other imaginable sexual perversion, we understand that Jesus gave a greater latitude and flexibility in these divorce decisions than we had earlier assumed (based exclusively upon adulterous 'fraud'). Any violence against the marriage contract (stemming from unconversion) would constitute grounds for divorce, and would permit the converted partner to remarry. Mutual access to the tree of life (God's Holy Spirit) gives marriage the best (actually the only) chance to succeed.