Judah’s Corruption.*1TheLord said to me: Go buy yourself a linen loincloth; wear it on your loins, but do not put it in water.2I bought the loincloth, as theLord commanded, and put it on.3A second time the word of theLord came to me thus:4Take the loincloth which you bought and are wearing, and go at once to the Perath; hide it there in a cleft of the rock.5Obedient to theLord’s command, I went to the Perath and buried the loincloth.6After a long time, theLord said to me: Go now to the Perath and fetch the loincloth which I told you to hide there.7So I went to the Perath, looked for the loincloth and took it from the place I had hidden it. But it was rotted, good for nothing!8Then the word came to me from theLord:9Thus says theLord: So also I will allow the pride of Judah to rot, the great pride of Jerusalem.a10This wicked people who refuse to obey my words, who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts and follow other gods, serving and worshiping them, will be like this loincloth, good for nothing.b11For, as the loincloth clings to a man’s loins, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me—oracle of theLord—to be my people, my fame, my praise, my glory. But they did not listen.c

The Broken Wineflask.12Now speak to them this word: Thus says theLord, the God of Israel: Every wineflask should be filled with wine. If they reply, “Do we not know that every wineflask should be filled with wine?”13say to them: Thus says theLord: Beware! I am making all the inhabitants of this land drunk, the kings who sit on David’s throne, the priests and prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.d14I will smash them against each other, parents and children together—oracle of theLord—showing no compassion, I will neither spare nor pity, but I will destroy them.e