1 This is what the LORD said to me: "Go and get yourself a linen loincloth and put it on your hips, but do not let it go into water."
2 So I got the loincloth, as the LORD had said, and put it on my hips.
3 And the word of the LORD came to me a second time, saying,
4 "Take the loincloth you bought, the one on your hips, and get up, go to the Euphrates and hide it there in a crevice of the rock."
5 So I went and hid it at the Euphrates, just as the LORD had commanded me.
6 Many days later the LORD said to me, "Get up, go to the Euphrates and take from there the loincloth I commanded you to hide there."
7 So I went to the Euphrates and dug and took the loincloth from the spot where I had hidden it; and there was the loincloth, spoiled, not fit for anything.
8 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
9 "Thus says the LORD: Just so will I spoil the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem.
10 This evil people, who refuse to listen to my words, who walk in the stubbornness of their heart and have gone after other gods to serve them and bow down to them, will become like this loincloth, which is fit for nothing.
11 For as the loincloth clings to a man's hips, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me," declares the LORD, "to be my people, a name, a praise and an adornment; but they did not listen.
12 "Speak this word to them: 'Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Every jar is to be filled with wine.' And they will say to you, 'Do we not know very well that every jar is to be filled with wine?'
13 Then say to them, 'Thus says the LORD: See, I am filling all the inhabitants of this land with drunkenness, the kings who sit for David on his throne, the priests, the prophets and all who live in Jerusalem.
14 I will smash them one against another, the fathers and the sons together,' declares the LORD. 'I will show no pity, I will not spare, I will have no compassion that would keep me from destroying them.'"
15 Listen and pay attention; do not be haughty, for the LORD has spoken.
16 Give glory to the LORD your God before he brings darkness, before your feet stumble on the mountains at dusk; you will hope for light, and he will make it the shadow of death and turn it into deep gloom.
17 But if you will not listen, my soul will weep in hiding over your pride; my eye will weep and weep and stream with tears, for the LORD's flock has been carried captive.
18 Tell the king and the queen mother, "Sit down low, for from your heads has come down your glorious crown."
19 The towns of the Negev are shut, with no one to open them; Judah is taken into exile, all of it, taken into exile completely.
20 Raise your eyes and look at those coming from the north. Where is the flock that was given to you, your beautiful sheep?
21 What will you say when he sets over you, as head, those you yourself trained to be your allies? Will not pains seize you like a woman in childbirth?
22 And if you say in your heart, "Why have these things happened to me?" it is for the greatness of your iniquity that your skirts have been stripped off and your heels treated with violence.
23 Can a Cushite change his skin, or a leopard its spots? Then you too can do good, you who are schooled in doing evil.
24 I will scatter them like stubble blown away by the desert wind.
25 This is your lot, the share I have measured out for you, declares the LORD, because you forgot me and put your trust in the lie.
26 I myself will pull your skirts up over your face, and your disgrace will be seen.
27 Your adulteries and your neighings, your shameless whoring on the hills in the field: I have seen your vile acts. Woe to you, Jerusalem! You will not be clean. How much longer?