1This is what the LORD said to me: “Go and buy yourself a linen loincloth and put it around your waist, but do not let it touch water.”
2So I bought a loincloth as the LORD had instructed me, and I put it around my waist.
3Then the word of the LORD came to me a second time:
4“Take the loincloth that you bought and are wearing, and go at once to Perath 13:4 Or possibly to the Euphrates; similarly in verses 5–7 and hide it there in a crevice of the rocks.”
5So I went and hid it at Perath, as the LORD had commanded me.
6Many days later the LORD said to me, “Arise, go to Perath, and get the loincloth that I commanded you to hide there.”
7So I went to Perath and dug up the loincloth, and I took it from the place where I had hidden it. But now it was ruined—of no use at all.
8Then the word of the LORD came to me:
9“This is what the LORD says: In the same way I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem.
10These evil people, who refuse to listen to My words, who follow the stubbornness of their own hearts, and who go after other gods to serve and worship them, they will be like this loincloth—of no use at all.
11For just as a loincloth clings to a man’s waist, so I have made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to Me, declares the LORD, so that they might be My people for My renown and praise and glory. But they did not listen.
12Therefore you are to tell them that this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Every wineskin shall be filled with wine.’
13then you are to tell them that this is what the LORD says: ‘I am going to fill with drunkenness all who live in this land—the kings who sit on David’s throne, the priests, the prophets, and all the people of Jerusalem.
14I will smash them against one another, fathers and sons alike, declares the LORD. I will allow no mercy or pity or compassion to keep Me from destroying them.’”
15Listen and give heed. Do not be arrogant,
16Give glory to the LORD your God
17But if you do not listen,
18Say to the king
19The cities of the Negev have been shut tight,
20Lift up your eyes and see
21What will you say when He sets over you
22And if you ask yourself,
23Can the Ethiopian 13:23 Hebrew that Cushite; that is, probably a person from the upper Nile region change his skin,
24“I will scatter you like chaff
25This is your lot,
26So I will pull your skirts up over your face,
27Your adulteries and lustful neighings,