"And they shall eat, and not be satisfied: and they have committed fornication, and have not ceased: because they have forsaken the Lord in not keeping him: fornication, and wine, and drunkenness take away the heart. My people hath consulted their stocks, and their staff hath declared unto them: for the spirit of fornication hath deceived them, and they have committed fornication against their God." "And they shall eat, and not be filled:" "they have committed fornication, and shall not be directed: because they have forsaken the Lord, to keep not his law: fornication, and wine, and drunkenness take away the heart of my people. They consulted their wood, and their staff answered them: for the spirit of fornication hath deceived them" "and they have committed fornication against their God." Insatiable pleasure is created, and the more one is captured by it, the more hunger it creates. On the contrary, blessed are the hungry and thirsty for justice, for they will be satisfied. As justice satisfies, so too does iniquity, having no substance, delude those who consume it deceitfully and leave the stomachs of the devourers empty. They have committed fornication and have not ceased. Their strength fails in fornication, and the desire to fornicate does not rest. They committed fornication with the idols of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and left their Lord God, not keeping what he had commanded, saying: "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve" (Deuteronomy 6:13), but it should be read emphatically: Fornication and wine and drunkenness take away the heart. For just as wine and drunkenness make him who drinks thereof incapable of his own mind, so does fornication and pleasure pervert the senses and weaken the spirit; and it turns a rational man into a brute animal, so that he pursues brothels, dens of vice, and places of debauchery. And when his heart is stirred out of its place, he holds wood and stones as gods, and worships the works of his own hands. Hence the prophet, as if amazed and bewildered, speaks: “My people who were once called by my name have asked counsel of a wooden idol, and have sought intuition from rods, which the Greeks call divination by rods." Therefore in Ezekiel we read that Nebuchadnezzar mixed his rods against Ammon and Jerusalem, and a rod went forth against Jerusalem (Ezek. 25): and the cause of this madness of fornication is the spirit that deceived them, so that they might fornicate against their God. But he calls fornication idolatry, according to what we read in Jeremiah: "And they committed adultery with wood and stone, and I said, After they have committed adultery with all these things, return to me, but she did not return with all her heart, but with lies." And again: "You have left me and said, I will go on every high hill, and under every green tree I will spread myself in my fornication" (Jer. 3:5, 6). And in the Psalm it is said: 'You have destroyed all who commit fornication away from you' (Ps. 72:27). For the beginning of fornication is the invention of idols. Heretics are never satisfied with their own error, and do not cease from the disgracefulness of fornication. They do not keep the holy Law and Scriptures, abandon the Lord, become insane and inebriated, and, with the judgment of their mind destroyed, worship idols which they themselves have fashioned from their hearts and are possessed by the spirit of fornication.
[AD 420] Jerome on Hosea 4:10-12