1Thus said Yahweh to me: “Go and buy yourself a linen waistband and put it on your loins, but do not bring it into water.”
2So I bought the waistband according to the word of Yahweh and put it on my loins.
3Then the word of Yahweh came to me a second time, saying:
4“Take the waistband that you bought, which is on your loins, and arise, go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.”
5So I went and hid it by the Euphrates, as Yahweh had commanded me.
6And it happened after many days that Yahweh said to me, “Arise, go to the Euphrates and take from there the waistband that I commanded you to hide there.”
7So I went to the Euphrates and dug, and I took the waistband from the place where I had hidden it. And behold, the waistband was ruined; it was good for nothing.
8Then the word of Yahweh came to me, saying:
9Thus said Yahweh: “In this same way I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem.
10This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who walk in the stubbornness of their heart and have gone after other gods to serve them and to bow down to them—it shall become like this waistband that is good for nothing.
11For just as the waistband clings to the loins of a man, so I made all the house of Israel and all the house of Judah cling to me, declares Yahweh, to be my people, a name, a praise, and a glory; but they did not listen.
12So you shall speak to them this word: Thus said Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘Every jar shall be filled with wine.’ And when they say to you, ‘Do we not surely know that every jar shall be filled with wine?’—
13then you shall say to them: Thus said Yahweh, ‘Behold, I am about to fill all the inhabitants of this land—the kings who sit on David’s throne, the priests, the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem—with drunkenness.
14And I will smash them one against another, both the fathers and the sons together, declares Yahweh. I will not pity, nor spare, nor have compassion, from destroying them.’”
15Hear and give ear; do not be haughty, for Yahweh has spoken.
16Give glory to Yahweh your God before he brings darkness, and before your feet stumble on the mountains at twilight; and you hope for light, but he turns it into deep darkness and makes it into thick gloom.
17But if you will not hear it, my soul will weep in secret places because of your pride; and my eye will surely weep and run down with tears, because the flock of Yahweh has been taken captive.
18Say to the king and to the queen mother: Take a lowly seat, for from your heads has come down your crown of glory.
19The cities of the Negev are shut up, with no one to open them; Judah is carried away captive, all of it; it is carried away captive completely.
20Lift up your eyes and see those coming from the north. Where is the flock that was given to you, the sheep that were your glory?
21What will you say when he sets over you—for you yourself trained them against you—as chiefs at your head? Will not pangs seize you, like a woman in labor?
22And if you say in your heart, “Why have these things come upon me?”—it is for the greatness of your iniquity that your skirts have been uncovered and your heels are exposed by violence.
23Can a Cushite change his skin, or a leopard its spots? Then also you would be able to do good, you who are trained to do evil.
24So I will scatter them like chaff driven along by the desert wind.
25This is your lot, the portion I have measured out to you, declares Yahweh, because you have forgotten me and trusted in falsehood.
26So I myself have stripped your skirts up over your face, and your shame has been seen.
27Your adulteries and your neighings, your lewd whoring—on the hills, in the field—I have seen your detestable things. Woe to you, Jerusalem! You will not be clean—how long yet?
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