Jeremiah 13

1–2

Furthermore, this Paul said strongly that “the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking”—or abstinence from wine or meat—“but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Which of them goes around like Elijah wearing a sheepskin and a leather belt? Which of them wears no shoes and nothing but a piece of sackcloth like Isaiah? Or with nothing on but a linen loincloth, like Jeremiah?

The Stromata Book 3

1–2

The blessed John disdained sheep’s wool because it savored of luxury; he preferred camel’s hair and clothed himself in it, giving us an example of simple, frugal living. Incidentally, he also ate only honey and locusts, food that is sweet and with a spiritual significance. So it was that he prepared the way of the Lord and kept it humble and chaste. He fled from the false pretenses of the city and led a peaceful life in the desert with God, away from all vanity, boasting and servitude. How could he possibly have worn a purple mantle? Elijah used a sheepskin for his garment and girded it tight with a belt made of leather. Isaiah, another historic prophet, went “naked and without sandals” and often put on sackcloth as a garment of humility. If you protest and make mention of Jeremiah, he wore only a loincloth made of linen.

The Instructor Book 2

1–11

(Chapter 13, verse 1 onwards) Thus says the Lord to me: Go and acquire for yourself a linen loincloth (or belt) and put it on your loins, and do not bring it into water (or do not pass it through water). So I acquired a loincloth according to the word of the Lord and put it around my loins. Then the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying: Take the loincloth (or belt) that you acquired, which is around your loins, and go to the Euphrates and hide it there in a hole in the rock. And I went and hid it in the Euphrates, as the Lord had commanded me. And after many days, the Lord said to me: Arise and go to the Euphrates, and take from there the girdle (or belt) that I commanded you to hide there. And I went to the Euphrates, and dug, and took the girdle from the place where I had hidden it, and behold, the girdle had decayed so that it was of no use. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Thus says the Lord: So will I cause the pride (or injury) of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem and this evil people, who refuse to hear my words and walk in the stubbornness (or direction) of their evil hearts: they have gone after foreign gods to serve them and worship them, and they will be like this useless girdle. For as the waist is joined to the loins of a man, so have I joined to me all the house of Israel, and all the house of Juda, saith the Lord: that they might be my people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they would not hear. The girdle, or waistband, which is joined to the loins, is the people of Israel: they who have been taken up from the earth, and have not been softened, nor made white, and yet they have cleaved to God through his mercy. And when he sinned, because linen and a linen apron made of such material is rational, he was led across the Euphrates, that is, into Assyria, and there he was hidden, that is, absorbed in a multitude (or rather, magnitude) of great and innumerable nations, and regarded as nothing. But after a long time, the Prophet himself, as a type of God, freed the people from captivity. However, even after their return, they did not keep God's commandments; but they followed foreign gods, and in the end even laid hands on God's Son and brought about eternal damnation. Moreover, every holy man is a loin cloth of God, who, taken from the earth and from the mud of the earth, is joined in the partnership of God, and covers and surrounds, with greater diligence, those things which appear obscene in His Church, so that they may not be exposed to the bites of the Gentiles and the heretics. And if this loin cloth touches water and crosses the streams of the Euphrates, so that it is soaked with the moisture of the Assyrian region, it loses its original strength and decays, and is dissolved. And although it returns to the use of God, it cannot have its former beauty, not due to the hardness of God, but due to its own fault: because they do not want to hear His words, and they walk in the wickedness of their own heart, doing what seems right to them. But He Himself explains why He has put forth this similitude, saying: Just as the girdle clings to the loins of a man: so I have joined and made to cling to Me the whole house of Israel, and the whole house of Judah, specifically the twelve tribes, so that they would be for Me a people renowned and for praise and for glory; and for all this, they did not listen to Me, but followed their own faults. Therefore, let the one who can say: 'But for me it is good to be close to God' (Psalm 73:28), beware lest he be separated from his reins through negligence and cross the Euphrates and be given into the power of the Assyrian king, and be occupied not in the most solid rock but in the crevice of a corrupted and tainted rock, that is, be occupied with the filth and vices of heretics, and come to such putrefaction that he can no longer return to the service and the belt of the Lord.

Commentary on Jeremiah

1–11

Yet such is the order of nature. While truth is always bitter, pleasantness waits upon evildoing. Isaiah goes naked without blushing, as a type of the captivity to come. Jeremiah is sent from Jerusalem to the Euphrates (a river in Mesopotamia) and leaves his girdle to be marred in the Chaldaean camp, among the Assyrians hostile to his people. Ezekiel is told to eat bread made of mingled seeds and baked over the dung of people and cattle. He is commanded to experience the death of his wife without shedding a tear. Amos is driven from Samaria. Why is he driven from it? Surely in this case, as in the others, because he was a spiritual surgeon who cut away the parts diseased by sin and urged people to repentance. The apostle Paul says, “Am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?” And so the Savior found it, from whom many of the disciples turned back from following him because his sayings seemed hard.

Letter 40.1

1–11

We are the robe of Christ. When we have clothed him with our confession of faith, we, in turn, have put on Christ. It is the apostle who says that Christ is our robe, for when we are baptized, we put on Christ. We both clothe and are clothed. Would you like to know in what manner we clothe the Lord? We read in Jeremiah: “Go buy yourself a linen loincloth. Wear it on your loins, and go to the Euphrates. There hide it in a cleft of the rock. Obedient to the Lord’s command, I went to the Euphrates and buried the loincloth. After a long interval, again I went to the Euphrates, and the loincloth was rotted, good for nothing. Then the message came to me from the Lord: ‘Listen very carefully. As close as the loincloth clings to your loins, so had I made this people cling to me,’ says the Lord.” Why have I drawn this out to such length? To prove to you that the faithful are the garment of Christ.

Homilies on the Psalms 45 (ps 132)

1–11

The girdle, or loincloth, which is attached to the loins of God, is the people of Israel, who, like this piece of linen, were assumed from the earth unwashed and having no softness or beauty, yet were nevertheless joined to God through his mercy. When Israel sinned (which is why it was represented as a loincloth), it was led across the Euphrates and Assyria and there hidden, that is, absorbed, in a manner of speaking, into the crowd of larger and innumerable peoples and from captivity. Despite this, they did not observe the precepts of God after they were restored but went after other gods in the extreme, even raising their hand against the Son of God, and then they wasted away in everlasting perdition. God’s loincloth is also every holy person who is assumed from the earth, even from the dust of the earth, and united to God as a companion, who, in a certain way, surrounds and covers with greater diligence the things that appear in God’s church to be indecent, lest they become vulnerable to the stings of the pagans and heretics. Yet, as the loincloth was affected by the water of the Euphrates and was assimilated to the river’s flow, so also Israel was imbued with the atmosphere of the Assyrian region, which destroyed its original strength and corrupted and dissolved it. Even though Israel returned to God’s service, it was never able to regain its pristine beauty, though this was not due to any severity of God’s part, but only to the Israelites’ own wickedness, for they would not hear his word but did whatever seemed good to themselves and walked in the depravity of their own hearts. But this is also why the divine word itself made the following analogy, saying, “As the loincloth clings to the loins of a man, so I have fastened and joined all the house of Israel and the whole people of Judah [obviously the ten tribes and the two] to myself, that they may be a people for my name and my praise and my glory, but none of them would listen to me, following instead their own vices.” Therefore, let the one who is able to say “it is good for me to cling to God,” be careful lest, through negligence, he is separated from the loins of God and passes into the Euphrates and is given over to the power of the king of Assyria and becomes situated not on the most solid rock but in the cleft of that corrupt and decaying rock, which is the sordid life and the wickedness of heretics, and there encounters so grave a deterioration that he would be no longer able to return to the service and the loincloth of the Lord.

Six Books on Jeremiah 3:14.5-9

The linen waistcloth clings about his hips. Why? In order to make clear that the people are like a shelter of God. For against those who wish to accuse God, the people of God are placed, and they cover him like a shield and do not allow something wrong to be said in what concerns God. But whenever we sin, just as the prophet puts aside this loincloth and condemns it to the Euphrates River in order that it may perish there, so the sinner is thrown from the hips of God. And once banished, he is banished to the Euphrates River, the river of Mesopotamia, where there are Assyrians, enemies to Israel, where there are Babylonians, and there he is ruined.

Homilies on Jeremiah 11:6.1

The linen waistcloth clings about his hips. Why? In order to make clear that the people are like a shelter of God. For against those who wish to accuse God, the people of God are placed, and they cover him like a shield and do not allow something wrong to be said in what concerns God. But whenever we sin, just as the prophet puts aside this loincloth and condemns it to the Euphrates River in order that it may perish there, so the sinner is thrown from the hips of God. And once banished, he is banished to the Euphrates River, the river of Mesopotamia, where there are Assyrians, enemies to Israel, where there are Babylonians, and there he is ruined.

Homilies on Jeremiah 11:6.1

The reversed order, however, furnishes a clue for our exegesis. “The Lord is king, in splendor robed.” The Lord is king, and he is robed in the splendor of patriarchs and prophets and a people that believes. He is robed in splendor. The patriarchs and prophets have been as the garment of Christ. They are the loincloth mentioned in Jeremiah—the girdle that he wore about his loins. Do you know that the saints are like a girdle and the vestment of God? God says to Jeremiah, “As close as the loincloth clings to a man’s loins, so had I made my people cling to me.” God’s people are as close to him as person’s clothing is to his body.

Homilies on the Psalms 26 (ps 98)

Understand these skins in terms of evil and virtue in order to envision how every skin is filled with wine. But if it is necessary to see the effects of evil and of virtue—punishments due to the evil, blessings and promises due to virtue—let us set down from the sacred Scriptures how the punishments and the promises are discussed as wine: “Take the cup of this undiluted wine, and give to all of the nations to which I have sent you to drink”—he says this to Jeremiah, and he adds to it—“and they will drink and vomit and go mad and fall.” Hence he has called the punishments here “undiluted wine,” which those deserving of “undiluted wine drink,” that is, an “undiluted” punishment. But there are others who drink a punishment that is not undiluted but that has been diluted. For “in the hand of the Lord is a cup filled with a mixture of undiluted wine, and he poured it from this into this. Though its lees were not emptied out, all of the sinners of the earth drink.” If you also wish to know the “cup of blessing” that the righteous drink, the text from Wisdom then also suffices, in which it says, “Drink the wine that I diluted for you.” But see with me the Savior on the Passover who goes up into “a large upper room furnished and ornamented” and who feasts with the disciples and gives to them a cup, about which it is not written that he diluted. For Jesus, who cheers up the disciples with undiluted wine, cheers them up and says to them, “Take, drink, this is my blood, which is poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins. Do this as often as you drink in memory of me,” and, “Truly I say to you, I shall not drink again of this until that day when I drink it new with you in the kingdom of God.” You see the promise that is the cup of the new covenant. You see the punishments as the cup of the undiluted wine, and another form of punishment as the cup that has been diluted so that in each person what he drinks is diluted according to the amount the worthwhile action mingles with the futile action. Notice that those who are strangers in every way to the worship of God and who do not commit themselves but live as it happens drink the undiluted wine—to which we apply the text from Jeremiah—while those who are not in every way apostates and sinners but are still unworthy of the cup of the new covenant, these people sometimes do better, sometimes the opposite acts, and drink wine of an undiluted mixture.

Homilies on Jeremiah 12:2.2

And these things he said, setting laws and rules for his own disciples, that when they should have to receive as disciples those of all sorts that should come from the whole world, they might deal with them very gently. “Neither is new wine put into old wineskins.” Consider how his illustrations are like those in the Old Testament. The garment? The wineskins? For Jeremiah, too, calls the people “a waistcloth” and makes mention again of “jar” and of “wine.” Thus, the discourse being about gluttony and a table, he takes his illustrations from the same.

Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew 30:5

12–14

(Verse 12 onwards) You shall say therefore to them (or to the people) this message. Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Every pitcher (or vessel) shall be filled with wine. And they shall say to you: Do we not know that every pitcher (or vessel) shall be filled with wine? And you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, and the kings who sit on David's throne, and the priests and the prophets and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness. And I will scatter them, man from his brother, and fathers and sons together, says the Lord. I will not spare (or show mercy) and I will not relent, nor will I have compassion, so as not to destroy them. The Hebrew word Nebel () has been translated by the Aquila's first edition as 'laguncula', by the second edition as 'nebel' itself, by Symmachus as 'crater', by the LXX as 'utres', and by Theodotion as 'vas'. All of them interpret it as a vessel that is not filled with oil, water, honey, milk, or any other liquid material, but with wine and drunkenness. This shows that we are fragile vessels, as the Apostle says: 'But we have this treasure in earthen vessels' (2 Corinthians 4:7), and that it is impossible for us not to be filled with what is written: 'For no good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh'. And again, I do not do the good that I want, but the evil that I do not want, that is what I practice (Rom. VII, 18). And then, wretched man that I am, who will rescue me from this body of death (Ibid., 19)? But by this drunkenness, where we forget the commandments of God, and every human condition is filled with vice and sin, as the Prophet says: No living being will be justified in your sight (Psal. CXLII, 2), not in comparison to God (as the ancient and new heretics claim, and the supporters of heretics), but in knowledge of Him: for man sees the face, but God sees the heart (I Sam. XVI, 7); and what may appear clean to us, is found filthy in His eyes: not only the common and lowly crowd, but also the kings of the Church, descendants or sons of David, who lie back with their heads raised and stretch their necks, and with outstretched necks, sit upon His throne. The priests themselves, the second in rank in ecclesiastical honor, and the prophets, who are thought to have knowledge of the Scriptures, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, are filled with a variety of sins: whether Jewish, as the Seventy have added. And when they are drunk, they are scattered from the company of their own, and fathers are separated from sons and sons from fathers, so that they are polluted by various heresies, and under the name of Christ they fight among themselves, and they fight against their mother, who gave birth to them, the Church. Where it says: I will not desire them, but I will have them in everlasting hatred: I will not spare, and I will not grant mercy, nor will I show compassion: not out of cruelty of judgment, but out of the truth of justice. For those who have slain my people, they themselves shall perish forever. This can be understood simply according to history, that kings, priests, and prophets, and all the people of Jerusalem must be made drunk with the cup of Babylon, and overwhelmed by the evils of captivity.

Commentary on Jeremiah

And showing the unchangeable nature of his wrath, God introduced these words: “I will not yearn after them, and I will not spare them, and I will not have pity on them because of their destruction,” rather than “[I will not have pity on] their destruction.” Then he calls their punishment drunkenness since those who fall into great misfortunes resemble those who are intoxicated inasmuch as they are not able even to mourn because they are suffering so much.

On Jeremiah 3:13

(Verse 15.) Hear and perceive with your ears: Do not be lifted up, because the Lord has spoken. Because he said above, every vessel shall be filled with wine: so that even kings, and priests, and prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem may be filled with drunkenness, therefore he joins and says: Hear and perceive with your ears, both externally and internally, both in mind and body; and do not be lifted up with pride, considering your own weakness, and that there is no one who is without this drunkenness according to the extent of their sin. Where he is scattered, and corrupted, and unworthy of God's mercy, lifting himself up against Him through pride.

Commentary on Jeremiah

16–17

(Verse 16, 17.) Give glory to the Lord your God ((or our)) before it grows dark, and before your feet stumble upon dark (or gloomy) mountains. You will wait for light, but there will be only darkness (or according to the Hebrew, he will put it in darkness and gloom). And if you will not listen, your soul ((or mine)) will weep in secret because of arrogance (or injury). To those to whom the divine discourse had been spoken, saying: 'Listen and perceive with your ears, and do not be exalted', now it calls to repentance, so that before they are led to Babylon, and their feet stumble upon dark or gloomy mountains, they may give glory to God. Hence, it is often said to sinners: 'Give glory to God' (Psalm 67:35). And as for why Babylon and the whole region of the Chaldeans are called dark or gloomy mountains, we read in the beginning of the vision of Isaiah against Babylon, where it is written: 'Raise a signal on a dark mountain' (Isaiah 13:2), which in Hebrew is called Nesepha. Therefore, he commanded them to repent before they are led into captivity and experience the evils of slavery. And while they wait for light, they should sit in darkness. But if, he says, you refuse to listen to me in secret, near the Eagle, in darkness, your soul will weep, or according to the Septuagint, from the face of pride; so that not even a sigh or a cry may be free, so that the eyes of the conquerors may not be offended. But we can interpret this place in the following way: The Savior says: Work while it is day: the night is coming when no one can work (John 9:4). Concerning this time, there is also the prophecy of Isaiah: For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be darkened at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light (Isaiah 13:10). Zephaniah also agrees with these words, saying: A day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness (Zephaniah 1:15). Therefore, before the time of judgement comes, and our feet stumble upon dark mountains, the opposing fortitudes, which are placed in front of us with torments and tortures, let us repent, lest while awaiting the light, we be enveloped in the darkness of night; and let us know that unless we do this, we shall refuse to hear the weeping soul, either of God or of the Prophet, because of our own arrogance. Hence, the Prophet himself also says:

Jerusalem will weep, weeping the eye pulls down a tear: for the flock of the Lord has been captured (and I cannot hide my grief with silent groans). But the cause of all torments is that the flock of the Lord has been captured. Let us say to the Jews and to our Judaizers, who only follow a simple and superficial history, unless you hear secretly, that is, in mystery or in darkness, which God has established as His hiding place (Ps. XVII), and according to Solomon, so that they may understand the parable and the obscure discourse, the soul of the Prophet will weep, or rather, their own souls from the face of pride, while they resist God through stubbornness. And so there will be weeping and perpetual tears on the hills, because the flock of the Lord has been captured and corrupted by the true Nebuchadnezzar.

Commentary on Jeremiah

18–19

(Verse 18, 19.) Say to the king and the queen (or say to the king and the powerful): Humble yourselves, sit down, for the crown of your glory has been taken off (or has descended) from your head. The cities of the South are closed, and there is no one who will open them. All of Judah has been carried away (or all of Judah has been taken away) in complete exile (or captivity). The prophets are commanded to speak to King Jehoiachin and his mother, whom he addresses as lady and queen, that they should humble themselves and sit in the dust, for they have lost their royal dignity and must be handed over to the Babylonian king. The cities of Austria are closed, that is, the tribes of Judah and Jerusalem, which are turned towards the south near the desert, and there is no one who can open them surrounded by the siege. All of Judah, or all of Judea, has been transferred by complete migration: whether it received what it deserved, and it was fulfilled in it, as the Seventy translated. It is foolish in this place, who understands the king, Christ, and the powerful ones, the angels or apostles, as assuming the body of humility and sitting in the dust, and losing either the king or the powerful from their head the crown; and that the glory of Judah was transferred when it was fulfilled in the passion: All have turned aside, together they have become useless, there is no one who does good, not even one. The Hebrew word Gebira (). Aquila and Symmachus interpreted it as dominatricem et dominam, which the Septuagint believed to be Geburoth (), and they said potentes.

Commentary on Jeremiah

20–21

(Verse 20, 21.) Lift up your eyes and see those who come from the north: where is the flock that was given to you, your splendid flock? What will you say when they visit you? You have taught them and trained them against you, and it will come upon your own head. The inhabitants of Jerusalem are commanded to lift up their eyes and see the Chaldeans coming from the north: the city itself is questioned and asked: Where is the flock that was given to you, your splendid flock? Where is your people, whom you received from God? Where is that great and illustrious multitude, that you believed the entire province was gathered in one place? What will you say when the Lord visits you with His rod, and hands you over to the enemies of Babylon, whom you, against yourself, either on your own head, or from the very beginning, taught to flee to their help and follow their idols; who, under the pretense of friendship with you, learned by what route they should come to you. Let the Church heed this, that she herself may teach her adversaries how they can capture her in spiritual captivity and tear her flock apart with the cruelty of beasts.

Commentary on Jeremiah

(Verse 22) Do not pains seize you, like a woman in childbirth? And if you say in your heart, why have these things come to me? It is because the shameful things of your iniquity have been revealed, your plants have been defiled (or dishonored). While you do not know, like a woman experiencing sudden labor pains, so will sudden captivity seize you. And if you wish to argue and inquire why you have been handed over to the enemy, hear clearly, this multitude has brought upon you the iniquities of your own doing, so that your shame may be revealed, like that of a prostitute, with your clothes lifted and your public fornications exposed. By these things we learn to act patiently towards the Lord and to await our repentance as long as our sins are minor. But if we should desire to join sins to sins and to accumulate a heap of sins, our shameful things will be revealed and our deeds will be shown to all, either in this present age or in the future. For nothing is hidden that will not be revealed (Matth. X): when that of Daniel will be fulfilled: These will rise to eternal life, and those to everlasting shame and confusion (Dan. XII, 2).

Commentary on Jeremiah

For as the prophet speaks,” If the Ethiopian changes his skin, or the leopard his spots,” then will they be willing to think religiously who have been instructed in irreligion. You, however, beloved, on receiving this, read it by yourself. If you approve of it, read it also to the brethren who happen to be present, that they, too, on hearing it, may welcome the council’s zeal for the truth and the exactness of its sense and may condemn that of Christ’s foes, the Arians, and the futile pretenses, which for the sake of their irreligious heresy they have been at the pains to frame among themselves.

Defense of the Nicene Definition 7:32

Moreover, what did the prophet say? “If the Ethiopian changes his skin and the leopard its spots, this people will be able to do well, when it has learned evil.” He did not mean that it was impossible for them to practice virtue, but that they did not wish to do so; therefore, they could not.

Homilies on the Gospel of John 68

By the reading of the prophet the eunuch of Candace, the queen of Ethiopia, is made ready for the baptism of Christ. Though it is against nature, the Ethiopian does change his skin, and the leopard his spots.

Letter 69.6

Then immediately quickening her pace, she began to move along the old road that leads to Gaza, that is, to the “power” or “wealth” of God, silently meditating on that type of the Gentiles, the Ethiopian eunuch, who, in spite of the prophet, changed his skin and, while he read the Old Testament, found the fountain of the gospel.

Letter 108.11

(Verse 23.) If an Ethiopian can change his skin, or a leopard its spots, then you can do good, once you have learned evil. They use this testimony against the Church, those who want to assert different natures; and they say that the darkness or diversity of sins is so great that they cannot pass into whiteness and the beauty of one color: not taking into account what follows: And you can do good, once you have learned evil. For whatever is learned, it is not of nature, but of study and one's own will: which by excessive habit and love is in a certain way turned into nature. But that which is impossible for humans is possible for God (Matthew 19 and Luke 18): so that the Ethiopian and the leopard do not seem to change their own nature; but He who works in the Ethiopian and the leopard, as the Apostle says: I can do all things in Him who strengthens me, Christ (Philippians 4:13). And in a foreign place: Moreover, he says, I have labored more than all of them: not I, but the grace of God which is in me (I Cor. XV, 10). And: I am not living anymore, but Christ is living in me (Galat. II, 20). And again we read: What do you have that you did not receive? And if you have received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it (I Cor. IV, 7)? For these reasons, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, nor the strong man in his strength, nor the rich man in his riches, nor the virtuous man in his virtue, knowing that in all these things there is the power of Christ, not of those who boast in their own virtues.

Commentary on Jeremiah

Also, he showed so much love in his religion that, leaving behind a queen’s court, he came from the farthest regions of the world to the Lord’s temple. Hence, as a just reward, while he sought the interpretation of something that he was reading, he found Christ, whom he was seeking. Furthermore, as Jerome says, he found the church’s font there in the desert, rather than in the golden temple of the synagogue. For there in the desert something happened that Jeremiah declared was to be wondered at, an Ethiopian changed his skin, that is, with the stain of his sins washed away by the waters of baptism, he went up, shining white, to Jesus.

Commentary on Acts 8:27a

24–25

(Verse 24, 25.) And I will scatter them like chaff that is blown away by the wind in the desert. This is your portion and your measure from me, says the Lord (or also a part of your disobedience against me). Because by excessive habit of evils, they could not change their nature, not by the fault of the creator, but by the inclination towards wickedness, therefore I will scatter them like chaff blown away by the wind into the wilderness, according to what is written elsewhere: Like dust that the wind scatters from the face of the earth (Psalm 1, 4). And it makes an appeal to Jerusalem itself: that this is its fate, and this is the portion that it has chosen for itself, complete and overflowing, or rather, a part of its disobedience, in which it did not want to submit to God. For the measure with which it measures will be measured back to it.

Commentary on Jeremiah

26–27

But if even real virgins, when they have other failings, are not saved by their physical virginity, what shall become of those who have prostituted the members of Christ and have changed the temple of the Holy Spirit into a brothel? Immediately they should hear the words, “Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground—there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans. You shall no more be called tender and delicate. Take the millstone and grind meal. Uncover your locks, make bare your legs, pass over the rivers. Your nakedness shall be uncovered. Yes, your shame shall be seen.” Shall she come to this after the bridal chamber of God the Son, after the kisses of him who is to her both kinsman and spouse? Yes, she of whom the prophetic utterance once sang, “At your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir,” shall be made naked, and her skirts shall be discovered on her face.

Letter 22.6

(Verse 26) Because you have forgotten me, and have trusted (or hoped) in lies: therefore I will also uncover your thighs, and your shame will be revealed, your adulteries and your whinings, the wickedness (or alienation) of your fornication: The cause of Jerusalem's dispersion, because she has forgotten God, and has trusted, or hoped, in lies. Whoever trusts in worldly things besides God, forgets God. Where the thighs or buttocks are exposed, so that she may see her own shame: and what should be behind, is placed in front: so that she may observe what she has done, and her shame may be apparent not only to herself, but to everyone. Your adulteries and your lustful neighing not only show desire, but also the madness of desire, like the behavior of mares that are eager for mating, as Virgil said (Georgics III, 280-281).

. . . . Hippomanes, which the shepherds call by name, slow virus drips from the loins. Let us pray to Jesus that he may not reveal our thighs ((alternatively, loins)) in the present or in the future age, and our backsides, but that he may erase all our iniquities and not allow all sins to appear.

Commentary on Jeremiah

26–27

“After committing many transgressions,” he says, “you were not prepared to have recourse to repentance. I shall no longer demonstrate longsuffering. Instead, I will inflict punishment.” It is better, therefore, to live according to the divine laws. But since we who are human will most likely fall at some point, we ought to have recourse to the remedies of repentance, and through them placate the judge and escape the experience of the punishments he threatens. May we for our part continue to not experience them, thanks to the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ.

On Jeremiah 3:13.27

(Verse 27) On the hills in the field, I saw your abominations. Woe to you, Jerusalem, you will not be cleansed (or because you have not been cleansed) after me, how much longer? Not only in the midst of the city of Jerusalem, but on every hill and in all the regions, I saw your idols, from which it is said to you: Woe to you, Jerusalem, because you have not been cleansed after me, to boast about following in my footsteps and proclaiming my name, yet you have never been cleansed because you have forgotten me and put your hope in lies. From where does he chastise her and say, How much longer? and what sense, how long will I wait for you? how long will I endure? how much longer will you forget me to the end, and despise my teachings? She commits fornication on the hills and in the fields, and is never cleansed, who with erect neck is not humbled by pride under the powerful hand of God, but trusts in her own sins and vices.

Commentary on Jeremiah