Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, If you do return to Yahweh with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you, and direct your hearts to Yahweh, and serve him only; and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.
"The ... Ashtaroth"  (1 Samuel 7:3).  "This is the Hebrew plural of [~Ashtoreth], the name of the goddess of the Babylonians called Ishtar, and by the Greeks Astarte.  She was the oldest and the most widely distributed of the Semitic deities; and among the western Semites she was the goddess of fertility and sexual relations.  Rites of a most licentious nature were associated with her worship."[5]