13 Yahweh told me this: Go and buy yourself a linen loincloth and put it on, but don’t let it get near water. 2 So I bought a loincloth as Yahweh had told me to, and I put it on. 3 Then Yahweh gave me a second instruction, saying: 4 Take the loincloth that you bought and you’re wearing, and pack up and go to Perat[fn] and bury it in a crack in the rock. 5 So I went and hid it at Perat just as Yahweh had told me to.

6 Then after many days, Yahweh told me to get ready and go to Perat to retrieve the loincloth that he’d told me to bury there. 7 So I went to Perat and dug the loincloth out from the crack that I’d hidden it in, but wow, it was ruined and totally worthless.

8 Then Yahweh gave me this message: 9 Yahweh says that I’ll rot away the pride of Yehudah (Judah), including the pride of the great Yerushalem (Jerusalem). 10 That wicked nation that refused to listen to my messages, who are following their own stubborn desires and have followed other god by serving them and bowing down to them, let that nation become like that loincloth that’s no good for anything. 11 Yahweh declares that just like a loincloth is hitched to someone’s hips, so too I’ve made all those from Yisrael and Yehudah cling to me, to be my people who would bring me fame, praise, and honour, but they didn’t listen.