If you oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt:
All Commentaries on Jeremiah 7:6 Go To Jeremiah 7
Jerome
AD 420
He instructs both the people of Judea of that time and us today, who are seen to be constituted as the church. We are not to put our faith in the splendor of its buildings. Nor are we to put faith in its golden ceilings and decorated walls of marble. We are not to say “this is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.” For the temple of the Lord is there where the true faith dwells, in holy living and the chorus of all the virtues. Then he infers, “If you make your ways straight and if your thoughts do not follow error, and if you will do justice and refrain from evil, nor shed innocent blood or scandalize the little ones. If you do not walk after alien gods, honoring perverse doctrines that you simulate in your own hearts for evil purposes. I will dwell with you in that place that you call the temple of God and in the land that I gave to your ancestors, who were obviously apostles and apostolic men. Or at least I will cause you to dwell there from beginning to end in security.” This can be compared with the virgin who spreads modesty and freely prefers chastity, who has another conscience and knows only that virginal purpose of the apostle that “she be holy in body and in spirit.” For what good is a chaste body to a corrupt spirit that does not have the other virtues that this prophetic word describes?
