Yep. They're all over the Scriptures.
Whereas Christ was the true vine (Jn 15:1), Jerusalem was a useless vine (Ez 15). Through Christ, the branches remain faithful to God in the abiding holy city. Harlotry, on the other hand, characterized the ancient idolatrous city. When the idea is posited to Christians that the whore of Babylon was Jerusalem, they tend to think of modern Jerusalem and have difficulty making the historical leap to the first-century city and consequently shudder to think of present-day Jerusalem in such negative light. But they can rest easy, as Jerusalem after AD 70 does not factor into the biblical narrative. Jerusalem, the present-day capital of the present-day Israel, is not the whore of Babylon; Jerusalem, the ancient capital of ancient Judea, was. Without the temple and a rebellious citizenry, Jerusalem is not a harlot; with the temple and a rebellious citizenry, it was.
The New Testament identifies two Jerusalems. One is the ancient city in Palestine that was God’s unfaithful bride. The other is the heavenly city from above that is His faithful bride. The modern capital of Israel is neither of these brides; modern-day Jerusalem relates to the New Testament narrative no differently than any other modern city in the world does.
Neither was Rome ever called Babylon. The Imperial City, in fact, never even appeared on ancient Israel’s radar until the New Testament era. That city is never mentioned in the Old Testament. She was never the city in union with God; she was never in a position to betray Him and thus earn the name harlot.
The great Babylon was metaphorically called Sodom; it was the city where the Lord was crucified (Rv 11:8). The only city in the Bible other than historical Sodom itself that was ever called Sodom is Jerusalem (Is 1:10; Jer 23:14; Ez 16:44-48). The righteous Israelites would not have known if Rome had a history of drunkenness and sexual immorality. They would have seen this trait in Jerusalem, though. Prone to idolatry, Jerusalem had become an unfaithful city, and Isaiah laments its descent into adultery (Is 1:21), as do Ezekiel (chapter 16) and the whole host of righteous prophets. The ancient city (the holy people under the Old Covenant) was once wed to the Father (Jer 31:32), but over and over again she proved herself an adulterous bride who broke covenants and engaged in debauchery.
Nowhere does the Bible make such allusions about Rome. Jesus was not crucified in Rome or at the behest of any Roman institution. And he wasn’t crucified in the real Babylon either; Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem. Ancient Jerusalem was the whore of Babylon, the unfaithful bride, the city that murdered the prophets and messengers of God and refused to abide in the one most high (Mt 23:37). Referring to Jerusalem as Babylon was simply a way of describing this city of debaucheries.
Jesus told an audience of scribes and Pharisees in Jerusalem who actually acknowledged their ancestral murderers that they themselves would murder and persecute the faithful (Mt 23:29-36). In Acts 7:51-53, Stephen leveled the same charge against them and, true to form, these Jews stoned him to death. Hearkening to the prophets, Stephen echoed Christ’s admonition to this wicked generation that the Jews had always been unfaithful, that they had always taken up with the likes of such idols as Moloch, Rephan, Sikkuth, and Kiyyun (Acts 7:42-43; cf. Amos 5:25-27). So, infuriated, they did with Stephen what they did with Jesus. They were not shy about their murderous inclinations. The generations of wickedness in the ancient city reached a high point in this final, evil generation, as evidenced in the wars.
Witch hunts and persecutions emanated from Jerusalem, the symbolic Babylon where the Lord was crucified. Stephen and Paul were only two of the Christians whom the Jews persecuted in this city and her tributaries throughout Judea. The adulterous city consumed the entire land of milk and honey. On this beast Jerusalem, once a mighty and seductive center of commerce adorned with purple and scarlet, the colors of priestly garments, sat a woman “drunk with the blood of the saints.” On Jerusalem sat a spirit of harlotry and bloodlust.
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