This is what the Lord said to me: “Go and buy a linen loincloth and put it on, but do not wash it.” ²So I bought the loincloth as the Lord directed me, and I put it on.

³Then the Lord gave me another message: ⁴“Take the linen loincloth you are wearing, and go to the Euphrates River. Hide it there in a hole in the rocks.” ⁵So I went and hid it by the Euphrates as the Lord had instructed me.

⁶A long time afterward the Lord said to me, “Go back to the Euphrates and get the loincloth I told you to hide there.” ⁷So I went to the Euphrates and dug it out of the hole where I had hidden it. But now it was rotting and falling apart. The loincloth was good for nothing.

⁸Then I received this message from the Lord: ⁹“This is what the Lord says: This shows how I will rot away the pride of Judah and Jerusalem. ¹⁰These wicked people refuse to listen to me. They stubbornly follow their own desires and worship other gods. Therefore, they will become like this loincloth—good for nothing! ¹¹As a loincloth clings to a man’s waist, so I created Judah and Israel to cling to me, says the Lord. They were to be my people, my pride, my glory—an honor to my name. But they would not listen to me.

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