Halakhah for Sanhedrin 211:3
(במדבר כד, כא) וירא את הקיני וישא משלו אמר לו בלעם ליתרו קיני לא היית עמנו באותה עצה מי הושיבך אצל איתני עולם
just as the cedar does not stand in a watery place, and its roots are few and its stock is not renewed, and even if all the winds of the world come and blow upon it they cannot stir it from its place, but immediately the South wind blows upon it it uproots and overturns it on its face, [so may Israel be]. Nay, more, it was the reed's privilege that a quill thereof should be taken for the writing of the Scroll of the Torah, Prophets and Hagiographa.
Sefer HaChinukh
It is from the roots of the commandment [that it is] to distance our holy nation from matters of sexual immorality and any matter and any angle whatsoever that contains a stumbling block towards it - as the matter that they, may their memory be blessed, said metaphorically (Sanhedrin 106a) that our God hates promiscuity. [This] means to say, that in His love for us, He distanced us from promiscuity, which is an exceedingly ugly thing, [and which] takes the heart of a man and pushes it off from the good path and from desirable thoughts, to a bad path and thoughts of stupidity. And there is no doubt that if the clothes of men and women were the same, they would constantly mix - these with those - 'and the world would be filled with promiscuity.' And they also said in explaining this commandment that it is to distance all matters of idolatry, as the way of the worshipers of idolatry was with this. And I found these two reasons in the books of Rambam (Sefer HaMitzvot LaRambam, Mitzvot Lo Taase 40; Guide for the Perplexed 3:37) after I wrote them.
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