3Then the Lord gave me another message:

4“Take the linen loincloth you are wearing, and go to the Euphrates River.13:4 Hebrew Perath; also in 13:5, 6, 7. 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.

12“So tell them, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: May all your jars be filled with wine.’ And they will reply, ‘Of course! Jars are made to be filled with wine!’

13“Then tell them, ‘No, this is what the Lord means: I will fill everyone in this land with drunkenness—from the king sitting on David’s throne to the priests and the prophets, right down to the common people of Jerusalem.

14I will smash them against each other, even parents against children, says the Lord. I will not let my pity or mercy or compassion keep me from destroying them.’”