Jerome : "They turned back, so as to be without a yoke: they became as a deceitful bow: their princes shall fall by the sword, by the rage of their tongue: this their derision in the land of Egypt." LXX: "they were turned into nothing, they became like a tense bow, their rulers shall fall by the sword because of their lack of understanding; this is their derision in the land of Egypt." And as they were in the beginning, before I called them by Abraham, and afterwards by Moses and Aaron, and they were without the yoke of the law and without knowledge, and mingled with all nations: so now they have returned to their former state, so as to be carried down headlong without a yoke and reins, and changed into a deceitful bow, so that having aimed at whom God had directed them, they turned their weapons against their own Lord, and sent forth arrows of blasphemy against Him. Therefore, their princes shall fall by the sword because of the rage of their tongue: this is their derision in the land of promise. They have said: "Where is he that he may reign over us?" In undisciplined pride they have pushed you away from your people, saying: "Be gone from us, for we do not desire to know your ways." And: "Would that we had died in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots" (Exodus 32:4), and the rest. And [heretics] return to the state of the Gentiles so that they were without the knowledge and yoke of God: or they returned to nothingness, not that they ceased to be, but that in comparison to Him who speaks to Moses, "Go, tell the people of Israel: He who sent me" (Exodus 3:14), all who are against the Lord should not be said to be (they are called). According to what we read in Esther, specifically in the Septuagint: "Do not give your scepter to those who are not worthy" (Esther XIV, 11, sec. LXX), it is undoubtedly referring to idols. For if God is truth, whatever is contrary to truth is falsehood and cannot be named. This is what heretics agree on, who, having learned from the Holy Scriptures, translate the words of the Lord of the Law, Prophets, and Gospel against Him, and they are like a deceitful and perverse bow. A deceitful and wicked is the bow that strikes its director and wounds its master. Whether they have been made like a bow drawn taut, always ready for battle and disputes, for the overthrow of those who hear them. Therefore their leaders, that is, the heresiarchs, are struck with the sword of the Lord, because of the insanity of their tongue, with which they blasphemed the Lord: doing the same thing in the false name of the Church, which they did at the time when they lived in the ages of Egypt, that is, when they were gentiles. For all the questions of heretics and Gentiles are the same, because they follow not the authority of Scripture, but the sense of human reason. — Commentary on Hosea 7:14-16