13 This is what Jehovah told me: “Go and buy a linen belt for yourself and put it around your waist, but do not dip it in water.” 2 So I bought the belt according to the word of Jehovah and put it around my waist. 3 And the word of Jehovah came to me a second time: 4 “Take the belt that you bought and are wearing and get up, go to the Eu·phraʹtes, and hide it there in a cleft of the crag.” 5 So I went and hid it by the Eu·phraʹtes, just as Jehovah had commanded me.
6 But many days later Jehovah said to me: “Get up, go to the Eu·phraʹtes, and take from there the belt that I commanded you to hide there.” 7 So I went to the Eu·phraʹtes and dug up the belt and took it from the place where I had hidden it, and I saw that the belt had been ruined; it was completely useless.
8 Then the word of Jehovah came to me: 9 “This is what Jehovah says, ‘In the same way I will destroy the pride of Judah and the immense pride of Jerusalem.+ 10 These evil people who refuse to obey my words,+ who stubbornly follow their own heart,+ and who are following other gods, serving and bowing down to them, will become just like this belt that is completely useless.’ 11 ‘For just as a belt clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me,’ declares Jehovah, ‘to become to me a people,+ a name,+ a praise, and something beautiful. But they did not obey.’+