And I will pluck up thy groves out of the midst of thee: so will I destroy thy cities.
And I will pluck up thy groves ... so will I destroy thy cities. The "groves" are the idolatrous symbol of Astarte (Deuteronomy 16:21, "Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the Lord thy God:" so as to have no resemblance to the idolatrous usages of the pagan; 2 Kings 21:7, Manasseh "set a graven image of the grove in the house"). "Cities," being parallel to "groves," must mean cities in or near which such idolatrous groves existed. Compare "city of the house of Baal" (2 Kings 10:25) - i:e., a portion of the city sacred to Baal.