¹Thus Yahweh said to me: Go and buy yourself a linen waistcloth, and put it on your loins, but do not bring it into the water.

²So I bought the waistcloth according to the word of Yahweh, and I put it on my loins.

³And the word of Yahweh came to me a second time, saying:

⁴Take the waistcloth, that you bought, which is on your loins, and rise, go to Perath, and hide it there in the cleft of the crag.

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

⁶And it was, at the end of many days, Yahweh said to me: Rise, go to Perath, and take from there the waistcloth that I commanded you to hide there.

⁷So I went to Perath and dug and took the waistcloth from the place where I had hidden it there; and look, the waistcloth was ruined; it could not succeed at anything.

⁸And the word of Yahweh came to me, saying:

⁹Thus Yahweh said: In this way I will ruin the majesty of Judah and the great majesty of Jerusalem.

¹⁰This evil people, who refuse to listen to my words, who walk in the stubbornness of their heart and have gone after other gods to serve them and bow down to them, shall be like this waistcloth, which cannot succeed at anything.

¹¹For as the waistcloth clings to the loins of a man, so I made cling to me all the house of Israel and all the house of Judah, the utterance of Yahweh, to be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a splendor; but they would not listen.

¹²And you shall say to them this word: Thus Yahweh, the God of Israel, said: Every wineskin will be filled with wine. And they will say to you: Do we not indeed know that every wineskin will be filled with wine?

¹³And you shall say to them: Thus Yahweh said: Look, I am filling all who dwell in this land — the kings who sit for David on his throne, the priests, the prophets, and all who dwell in Jerusalem — with drunkenness.

¹⁴And I will dash them to pieces, each one against his brother, the fathers and the children together, the utterance of Yahweh. I will not spare, and I will not pity, and I will not have compassion, to keep from ruining them.

¹⁵Hear and give ear; do not be haughty, for Yahweh has spoken.

¹⁶Give weightiness to Yahweh your God before he brings darkness, and before your feet stumble on the mountains of twilight; you will wait for light, and he will turn it into deep shadow and make it heavy cloud.

¹⁷But if you will not listen to it, my being will weep in secret places because of pride; my eye will weep and weep and run down with tears, because Yahweh's flock has been taken captive.

¹⁸Say to the king and to the queen mother: Make yourselves low, sit down, for your crowns have come down, the crown of your splendor.

¹⁹The cities of the Negev have been shut up, and there is no one to open; Judah has been carried into exile, all of her, carried into exile in wholeness.

²⁰Lift up your eyes and see those coming from the north: where is the flock that was given to you, the sheep of your splendor?

²¹What will you say when he appoints over you, as head, those you yourself taught to be intimates over you? Will not pangs seize you, like a woman giving birth?

²²And if you say in your heart, "Why have these things befallen me?" — in the greatness of your guilt your skirts have been uncovered, your heels have suffered violence.

²³Can a Cushite change his skin, or a leopard its spots? Then you also could do good, you who are trained to do evil.

²⁴And I will scatter them like stubble passing away on the wind of the wilderness.

²⁵This is your lot, the portion measured out for you from me, the utterance of Yahweh: because you forgot me and trusted in falsehood.

²⁶And I too bared your skirts over your face, and your shame was seen.

²⁷Your adulteries and your neighings, the depravity of your prostitution: on the hills, in the field, I have seen your detestable idols. Woe to you, Jerusalem! You will not be clean—after how long yet?