The invention relates to a sterilizing device (10) for sterilizing closures (16), such as lids and caps for containers, such as bottles and jars, which device comprises a housing (12), provided with a closure entry (14) for supplying closures, a closure exit (18) for discharging sterilized closures from the device, a sterilizing-agent feed (21) for feeding sterilizing agent into the device and a discharge (28; 30) for discharging used sterilizing agent, as well as pass-through means (20) for passing closures (16) through the housing (12), the pass-through means (20) comprising a non-rectilinear pass-through path (58) in the plane parallel to the main plane of the closures. A sterilizing method is also described.