The Instructor 2.12.126

Such Helens are the women of today: not truly beautiful, but richly made up. To them the Spirit prophesies through Zephaniah: “Their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them on the day of the Lord's wrath.” But those instructed by Christ should be adorned not with gold but with the Word, through whom alone the gold is seen. The ancient Hebrews would have been blessed if they had taken off the women's ornaments and thrown them away or only melted them down; but as it was, they cast them into a calf and worshiped it as an idol, and they themselves gained nothing from the art or the enterprise, but they taught our women, most figuratively, to abstain from ornaments. For desire that has gone whoring after gold becomes an idol, tried by fire, by which alone luxury is kept, like an idol, not truth. So the Word, reproaching the Hebrews through the prophet, says: “They made silver and gold for Baal,” meaning ornaments; and threatening most plainly, he says: “And I will punish her for the days of the Baals, in which she sacrificed to her, and put on her earrings and her necklaces”; and he added the reason for the adornment, saying: “And she went after her lovers, and forgot me, says the Lord.”