This is what the LORD told me: "Go and buy a linen belt for yourself, and put it around your waist. But don't let it get wet."

So I bought the belt according to the LORD's instruction, and put it around my waist.

Take the belt that you bought and that is around your waist. Get up and go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a crevice in the rock."

After a long time, the LORD told me, "Arise, go to the Euphrates, and get the belt that I commanded you to hide there."

I went to the Euphrates and dug it up. I got the belt from the place where I had hidden it. The belt was ruined! It was not good for anything.

This evil people that refuses to listen to my words, that stubbornly pursues their own desires, and that follows other gods to serve and worship them, will be like this belt that is not good for anything.

For just as the belt clings tightly to a person's waist, so I've made all the people of Israel and all the people of Judah cling tightly to me,' declares the LORD. "I did this so that they would be my people, name, praise, and glory. But they wouldn't listen.'

"Declare and proclaim among the nations. Lift up a banner and proclaim. Don't conceal anything. Say, "Babylon will be captured. Bel will be disgraced, and Marduk will be destroyed. Her idols will be disgraced, and her filthy images will be destroyed.'

I'll punish Bel in Babylon, and I'll make what he has swallowed come out of his mouth. The nations will no longer stream to him. Even the wall of Babylon will fall.