Jeremiah 13:1-15

1Thus Adonai said to me: “Go, and buy yourself a linen waistband and put it around your waist, and do not put it in water.”

2So I got a waistband in keeping with the word of Adonai, and put it on my waist.

3Then the word of Adonai came to me a second time, saying:

4“Take the waistband that you bought, which is on your waist, and get up, go to Perath and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.”

5So I went and hid it at Perath, as Adonai commanded me.

6Now it came to pass after many days that Adonai said to me: “Get up, go to Perath, and take the waistband that I commanded you to hide there.”

7So I went to Perath, dug it up and took the waistband from the place where I had hidden it. But to my surprise, the waistband was marred, worth nothing at all.

8Then the word of Adonai came to me, saying,

9thus says Adonai: “Just so I will mar the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem.

10This wicked people, who refuse to hear My words, who walk in the stubbornness of their own heart, and go after other gods to serve them and worship them, will be just like this waistband—worth nothing at all.

11For just as the waistband clings to a man’s waist, so I will make the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to Me,” declares Adonai, “to be to Me a people, a name, a praise and a glory. But they would not obey.”

12Moreover, speak this word to them, thus says Adonai, the God of Israel: “Every jug should be filled with wine.” When they say to you, ‘Don’t we know very well that every jug should be filled with wine?’

13Then you will say to them, thus says Adonai, ‘I am about to fill all the inhabitants of this land—even the kings who sit on David’s throne, the kohanim, the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem—with drunkenness.

14And I will smash them against each other, even fathers and sons,’ says Adonai. ‘I will show no pity, nor regret, nor compassion, to keep Me from destroying them.’”

15Hear and give ear! Do not be haughty! For Adonai has spoken.