Jeremiah 5:8

Angels do not change. Not one of them is a child, or a young man, or an old man, but in whatever state they were created, in the beginning, in that state they remain. Their substance is preserved pure and inviolate for them. But we change in our body, as has been shown, and in our soul and in the inner person, always shifting our thoughts with the circumstances. In fact, we are one sort of person when we are cheerful and when all things in our life are moving forward with the current. But we are another sort in precarious times, when we stumble against something that is not according to our wishes. We are changed through anger, assuming a certain savage state. We are also changed through our lusts of carnal things, becoming like beasts through a life of pleasure. "They become amorous horses," being madly in love with their neighbors' wives. The deceitful person is compared with a fox, as Herod was. The shameless person is called a dog, like Nabel the Carmelian. Do you see the variety and diversity of our change? Then, admire him who has fittingly adapted this title to us. For this very reason, a certain one of the interpreters seems to me to have handed over beautifully and accurately the same thought through another title. He says, "For the lilies," in place of, "For them that shall be changed." He thought that it was appropriate to compare the transitory state of human nature with the early death of flowers. But since this word has been inflected in the future tense (It is said, "For them that shall be changed," as if at some time later this change will be shown to us), let us consider whether there is suggested to us the doctrine of the resurrection, in which a change will be granted to us, but a change for something better and something spiritual.

Fasting can be utilized as a weapon against demonic armies: "For this kind does not come out except through prayer and fasting." Many good things come from fasting, but being satiated introduces the beginnings of insolence. It immediately rushes in alongside the delicacy you are eating and it accompanies rich sauces. All kinds of licentious behavior begin grazing at its table. After this, men start becoming "lusty horses" toward women because all this luxury begins to start a maddening itch that enters into their soul. Those who get drunk begin perverting themselves against nature, using a male like a female, or vice versa. Fasting, by contrast, reveals the proper boundaries for marriage. It curtails the excesses of even those things that may be permitted by law but that are abstained from by agreement so that the couple can devote themselves to prayer.But we should not limit the goodness of fasting only to abstaining from foods. True fasting, in whatever form, is the enemy of evil. "Loose the chains of injustice!" Forgive your neighbor when an offense occurs against you and forgive his debts. Do not "fast in order to bring about judgment and strife."14 You may not eat meat, but you devour your brother. You abstain from wine but hold on to insolence. You wait till evening to indulge [in a meal] but spend the day in court. "Woe to those who are drunk, but not from wine!" Wrath can also be a drunkenness of the soul, making it senseless, like wine. Grief can also feel like being drunk, weighing down the mind. […]

Humanity … did not understand and neglected to follow God and to become like his Creator. And becoming a slave of the passions of the flesh, "he is compared with senseless beasts and is become like them." Now he is like an amorous horse that neighs after his neighbor's wife. Now like a ravenous wolf, lying in wait for strangers, but at another time, because of his deceit toward his brother, he makes himself like the villainous fox. Truly, there is excessive folly and beast-like lack of reason that he, made according to the image of the Creator, neither perceives his own from the beginning nor even wishes to understand such great dispensations that were made for his sake. At least, he should learn his own dignity from them, but he is unmindful of the fact, and he throws aside the image of the heavenly, but he has taken up the image of the earthly.

Yet for all this some are so cold and senseless, as to be always seeking only the things that are here, and uttering those absurd sayings, "Let me enjoy all things present for a time, and then I will consider about things out of sight: I will gratify my belly, I will be a slave to pleasures, I will make full use of the present life; give me to-day, and take tomorrow." Oh excess of folly! Why, wherein do they who talk so differ from goats and swine? For if the prophet permits not them to be accounted men, that "neigh after their neighbors wife," who shall blame us for esteeming these to be goats and swine, and more insensible than asses, by whom those things are held uncertain, which are more evident than what we see?

The neighing horse depicts the recklessness of young men.

At another time, he speaks of us under the figure of a colt. He means by that that we are unyoked to evil, unsubdued by wickedness, unaffected and high-spirited only with him our Father. We are colts, not stallions "who whinny lustfully for their neighbor's wife," beasts of burden unrestrained in their lust. Rather, we are free and newly born, joyous in our faith, and hold fast to the course of truth. We are swift in seeking salvation, and we spurn and trample on worldliness.

And that which aggravated their sin was that it was the abuse of God's favours to them: When they were fed to the full, then their lusts grew thus furious. Fulness of bread was fuel to the fire of Sodom's lusts. Sine Cerere et Bacchio friget Venu--Luxurious living feeds the flames of lust.

They were as fed horses in the morning,....

"Rising early in the morning" is a phrase for unceasing eagerness in any pursuit; such was the Jews' avidity after idol-worship. MAURER translates from a different Hebrew root, "continually wander to and fro," inflamed with lust (Jer 2:23). But English Version is simpler (compare Jer 13:27;

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

After his neighbor’s wife - This may have been literally true, as the abominations of idolatry, in which they were so deeply practiced, would necessarily produce such a state of things as that here mentioned.

In the morning - Render, they rove about. Some prefer, “(horses) from Mesech.”