Jeremy 13

¹Thus saith our Lord to me: Go, and get thee a girdle of linen, and thou shalt put it about thy loins, and shalt not put it into water.

²And I got a girdle according to the word of our Lord, and put it about my loins.

³And the word of our Lord was made to me the second time, saying:

⁴Take the girdle, which thou hast gotten, which is about thy loins, and rising go to Euphrates, and hide it there in an hole of the rock.

⁵And I went, and hid it in Euphrates, as our Lord had commanded me.

⁶And it came to pass after many days, our Lord said to me: Arise, go to Euphrates: and take from thence the girdle, which I commanded thee that thou shouldst hide it there.

⁷And I went to Euphrates, and digged, and took the girdle out of the place, where I had hid it: and behold the girdle was rotten, so that it was fit for no use.

⁸And the word of our Lord was made to me, saying:

⁹Thus saith our Lord: so will I make the pride of Juda, and the great pride of Jerusalem.

¹⁰This most wicked people, which will not hear my words, and walk in the perversity of their heart: & have gone after strange gods to serve them, and to adore them: and they shall be as this girdle, which is fit for no use.

¹¹For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I fast joined to me all the house of Israel, and all the house of Juda, saith our Lord: that they might be my people, and name, and praise, and glory: & they heard not.

¹²Thou shalt say therefore unto them this word: Thus saith our Lord the God of Israel: Every bottle shall be filled with wine. And they shall say to thee: Why, are we ignorant that every bottle shall be filled with wine?

¹³And thou shalt say to them: Thus saith our Lord: Behold I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, & the kings that of the stock of David sit upon his throne, & the Priests, & the Prophets, & all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness.

¹⁴And I will disperse them every man from his brother, and the fathers and sons together, saith our Lord: I will not spare, and I will not yield: neither will I have mercy not to destroy them.

¹⁵Hear ye, and give ear. Be not elevated, because our Lord hath spoken.

¹⁶Give ye glory to our Lord your God, before it wax dark, and before your feet stumble at the dark mountains: you shall look for light, and he will turn it into the shadow of death, & into darkness.

¹⁷But if you will not hear this, in secret my soul shall weep because of the pride: weeping it shall weep, and mine eye shall drop tears, because the flock of our Lord is taken.

¹⁸Say to the king, and to her that ruleth: Be humbled, sit down: because the crown of your glory is come down from your head.

¹⁹The cities of the South are shut, and there is none that may open them: all Juda is transported with a perfect transmigration.

²⁰Lift up your eyes and see, you that come from the North, where is the flock that is given thee, thy noble cattle?

²¹What wilt thou say when he shall visit thee? For thou hast taught them against thee, and instructed them against thine own head: shall not sorrows apprehend thee, as a woman in travail?

²²And if thou shalt say in thy heart: why are these things come unto me? For the multitude of thine iniquity, thy more shamely parts are discovered: the soles of thy feet are polluted.

²³If the Æthiopian can change his skin, or the leopard his spots: you also can do well, when you have learned evil.

²⁴And I will scatter them as stubble, which is violently taken with the wind in the desert.

²⁵This is thy lot, and portion of thy measure from me, saith our Lord, because thou hast forgotten me, and hast trusted in lying.

²⁶Wherefore I have also made bare thy thighs against thy face, and thine ignominy hath appeared,

²⁷thine adulteries, and thy neighing, the wickedness of thy fornication: upon the little hills in the field I have seen thine abominations. Woe to thee Jerusalem, thou wilt not be made clean after me: how long yet?