Jeremiah 13
1 Thus saith the Lord, Go and procure
for thyself a linen girdle, and put it about thy loins, and let it not be put
in water. 2 So I procured the girdle
according to the word of the Lord, and put it about my loins.
3 And the word of the Lord came to me,
saying, 4 Take the girdle that is upon
thy loins, and arise, and go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a hole of
the rock. 5 So I went, and hid it by
the Euphrates, as the Lord commanded me.
6 And it came to pass after many days,
that the Lord said to me, Arise, go to the Euphrates, and take thence the
girdle, which I commanded thee to hide there.
7 So I went to the river Euphrates,
and dug, and took the girdle out of the place where I
had buried it: and, behold, it was rotten, utterly
good for nothing.
8 And the word of the Lord came to me,
saying, Thus saith the Lord, 9 Thus
will I mar the pride of Juda, and the pride of Jerusalem;
10 even this
great pride of the men that will not hearken to my
words, and have gone after strange gods, to serve them, and to worship them:
and they shall be as this girdle, which can be used for nothing.
11 For as a girdle cleaves about the
loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave to myself the house of Israel, and
the whole house of Juda; that they might be to me a famous people, and a
praise, and a glory: but they did not hearken to me.
12 And thou shalt say to this people,
Every bottle shall be filled with wine: and it shall come to pass, if they
shall say to thee, Shall we not certainly know that every bottle shall be
filled with wine? that thou shalt say to them,
13 Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I
will fill the inhabitants of this land, and their
kings the sons of David that sit upon their throne, and the priests, and the
prophets, and Juda and all the dwellers in Jerusalem, with strong drink.
14 And I will scatter them a man and
his brother, and their fathers and their sons together: I will not have
compassion, saith the Lord, and I will not spare, neither will I pity
to save them from destruction.
15 Hear ye, and give ear, and be not
proud: for the Lord has spoken.
16 Give glory to the Lord your God,
before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble on the dark mountains,
and ye shall wait for light, and behold the shadow of death, and they shall be
brought into darkness. 17 But if ye
will not hearken, your soul shall weep in secret because of pride, and your
eyes shall pour down tears, because the Lord's flock is sorely bruised.
18 Say ye to the king and the
princes, Humble yourselves, and sit down; for your crown of glory is removed
from your head. 19 The cities toward
the south were shut, and there was none to open them:
Juda is removed into captivity, they have suffered a
complete removal. 20 Lift up thine
eyes, O Jerusalem, and behold them that come from the north; where is the
flock that was given thee, the sheep of thy glory?
21 What wilt thou say when they shall
visit thee, for thou didst teach them lessons for rule against thyself; shall
not pangs seize thee as a woman in travail?
22 And if thou shouldest say in thine
heart, Wherefore have these things happened to me? Because of the abundance of
thine iniquity have thy skirts been discovered, that thine heels might be
exposed.
23 If the Ethiopian shall change his
skin, or the leopardess her spots, then shall ye be able to do good, having
learnt evil. 24 So I scattered them
as sticks carried by the wind into the wilderness.
25 Thus is thy lot, and the reward of
your disobedience to me, saith the Lord; as thou didst forget me, and trust in
lies, 26 I also will expose thy
skirts upon thy face, and thy shame shall be seen;
27 thine adultery also, and thy
neighing, and the looseness of thy fornication: on the hills and in the fields
I have seen thine abominations. Woe to thee, O Jerusalem, for thou hast not
been purified so as to follow me; how long yet
shall it be?