Jerome : (Version 5 and following) Thus says the Lord God: This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations, with the lands surrounding it; and it has despised my judgments, being more wicked than the nations, and my commandments more than the lands that surround it. For they have rejected my judgments and have not walked in my commandments. The Prophet also attests to Jerusalem being situated in the midst of the world, showing it to be the navel of the earth. And the Psalmist expressing the birth of the Lord: Truth, he says, has arisen from the earth (Ps. 48:12). And thereafter his passion: He has worked salvation in the midst of the earth (Ps. 74:12). For the plague called Asia is surrounded by the eastern parts. From the western parts, by that which is called Europe. From the south and the north, by Libya and Africa. From the north, by the Scythians, Armenia, Persia, and all the nations of the Pontus. Therefore, placed in the midst of nations, in order that the God who was known in Judea (Ps. 75) and his great name in Israel, all the nations surrounding her would follow her examples, she overcame even the nations themselves in her wickedness. Which Symmachus interpreted beautifully saying, 'These things, he says, Jerusalem, which I placed in the midst of nations, and the regions around her, changed my judgments for the impieties which she learned from the nations, and my statutes for the regions which are around her: for they rejected my laws, and did not walk in my judgments.' But what the Seventy have said, that my justifications are unjust from the nations, and my laws are not consistent with the regions around it, is clear even when I am silent. — Commentary on Ezekiel