⁸She would never acknowledge that I am the one who gave her the corn, the wine, the olive oil, and all the silver and gold that she used in the worship of Baal. ⁹So at harvest time I will take back my gifts of corn and wine, and will take away the wool and the linen I gave her for clothing. ¹⁰I will strip her naked in front of her lovers, and no one will be able to save her from my power. ¹¹I will put an end to all her festivities—her annual and monthly festivals and her Sabbath celebrations—all her religious meetings. ¹²I will destroy her grapevines and her fig trees, which she said her lovers gave her for serving them. I will turn her vineyards and orchards into a wilderness; wild animals will destroy them. ¹³I will punish her for the times that she forgot me when she burnt incense to Baal and put on her jewellery to go chasing after her lovers. The Lord has spoken.

The ’s Love for His People

¹⁴So I am going to take her into the desert again; there I will win her back with words of love. ¹⁵^*I will give back to her the vineyards she had and make Trouble Valley a door of hope. She will respond to me there as she did when she was young, when she came from Egypt. ¹⁶Then once again she will call me her husband—she will no longer call me her Baal.^f ¹⁷I will never let her speak the name of Baal again.

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Footnotes

fbaal: This title of the Canaanite god means “Lord”; another meaning of the word is “husband”.

Cross references

*2.15: Js 7:24–26