er paths.

2:7. And she shall follow after her lovers, and shall not overtake them:
and she shall seek them, and shall not find, and she shall say: I will
go, and return to my first husband: because it was better with me then
than now.

2:8. And she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and
multiplied her silver, and gold, which they have used in the service of
Baal.

2:9. Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in its season, and
my wine in its season, and I will set at liberty my wool, and my flax,
which covered her disgrace.

2:10. And now I will lay open her folly in the eyes of her lovers: and
no man shall deliver her out of my hand:

2:11. And I will cause all her mirth to cease, her solemnities, her new
moons, her sabbaths, and all her festival times. 2:12. And I will
destroy her vines, and her fig trees, of which she said: These are my
rewards, which my lovers have given me: and I will make her as a forest
and the beasts of the field shall devour her.

2:13. And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, to whom she burnt
incense, and decked herself out with her earrings, and with her jewels,
and went after her lovers, and forgot me, saith the Lord.

2:14. Therefore, behold I will allure her, and will lead her into the
wilderness: and I will speak to her heart.

I will allure her, etc... After all her disloyalties, I will still
allure her by my grace etc., and send her vinedressers, viz., the
apostles: originally her own children, who shall open to her the gates
of hope; as heretofore at her coming into the land of promise, she had
all good success after she had satisfied the divine justice by the
execution of Achan in the valley of Achor. Jos. 7.

2:15. And I will give her vinedressers out of the same place, and the
valley of Achor for an opening of hope: and she shall sing there
according to the days of her youth, and according to the days of her
coming up out of the land of Egypt.

2:16. And it shall be in that day, saith the Lord: That she shall call
me: My husband, and she shall call me no more Banli.

My husband... In Hebrew, Ishi. Baali, my lord. The meaning of this verse
is: that whereas Ishi and Baali were used indifferently in those days by
wives speaking to their husbands; the synagogue, whom God was pleased to
consider as his spouse, should call him only Ishi, and abstain from the
name of Baali, because of its affinity with the idol Baal.

2:17. And I will take a