Enflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys under the clifts of the rocks?
Ver. 5. Inflaming yourselves with idols.] That it might appear that there was good cause of so much sharpness, and that he did them no wrong. He painteth them out in their colours to the life: Incalescitis, id est, concumbitis; while ye commit folly and filthiness with your idols, ye are all "adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker; your baker sleepeth all the night, in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire." Hosea 7:4 ; Hos 7:6 And as the love of harlots is oft hotter than that of husband and wife, so superstition many times outdoeth true religion.
Slaying the children.] A barbarous practice, taught them by that old man slayer. Careless parents do little less, whom, therefore, Bernard calleth peremptores potius quam parentes, rather parricides than parents.