Later text
The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls. She held in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality.
Intertextuality Pair
Allusion
Later text
The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls. She held in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality.
Earlier text
And you, O devastated one, what will you do, though you dress yourself in scarlet, though you adorn yourself with gold jewelry, though you enlarge your eyes with paint? You adorn yourself in vain; your lovers despise you; they want to take your life.
Jeremiah 4:30 addresses apostate Jerusalem/Judah: "And you, O desolate one, what do you mean that you dress in scarlet, that you adorn yourself with ornaments of gold?" The woman desperately beautifies herself to attract lovers who will ultimately despise her. Revelation 17:4 describes the harlot "dressed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls" holding a golden cup. The verbal correspondence — scarlet garments, gold adornment, and the harlotry context — links the eschatological Babylon with Jeremiah's faithless Israel. Both texts portray the futility of external splendor when the relationship with God is broken. The allusion suggests that eschatological Babylon embodies the same spiritual adultery that characterized apostate Israel, and will meet the same judgment.