Take words with thee
And return to God.
Say to Him,
'Pardon Thou wholly iniquity
And receive (us) with favor.
Assyria will not save us,
We will not ride upon horses (to Egypt);
We will no more say to the work of our hands,
"Ye are our god."'"

And, in the fervor of his poetic soul, the prophet hears God's answer
to repenting and returning Israel:

"I will heal their backsliding,
I will love them freely,
For my anger is turned away from them.
I will be as dew to Israel;
He shall blossom as the lily
And strike his roots deep as Lebanon.
His saplings shall spread out,
And his beauty shall be as the olive tree.
They shall return and dwell in my shadow,
They shall live well-watered like a garden,
They shall flourish like a vine,
Their renown shall be like that of the wine of Lebanon."

But such hopefulness and promise of divine love had no more effect
upon the doomed people than did the attacks upon their sinfulness and
wrongdoing.