(Verse 12.) The time has come, the day is approaching. It is not only said of Jerusalem that the time of its captivity has come and the day has approached when it will be besieged by the Babylonian army, but also to the one who was rejoicing in his built and expanded storehouses, the Lord speaks: Fool, tonight your soul will be taken from you; and the things which you have prepared, whose will they be (Luke 12:20)? From where the Apostle also says: The time, he says, has been shortened (1 Corinthians 7:29). And in another place: For the form of this world passes away (Ibid., 31). It is to be noted that he did not say it will be postponed to the future, but he spoke of the present, it passes away, and the form of the world slips away daily. For it never remains in the same state; but the form of things that are growing and decaying flies by and changes. Hence the Lord also said: Heaven and earth will pass away (Matth. XXIV, 35). But if these things, in which all things that are in the world are contained, pass and go through, what can be perpetual in human affairs?
[AD 420] Jerome on Ezekiel 7:12