Jeremiah hides a linen belt and later finds it ruined and good for nothing (Jeremiah 13:1–7). God explains that Judah’s great pride will be ruined in the same way, though they were meant to cling to him (Jeremiah 13:9–11).
In Jeremiah 13:1–7, Jeremiah is told to buy a linen belt, wear it, and keep it dry. Later he receives a second word: he must travel to the Euphrates and hide the belt in a rock crevice. After “many days,” he is told to retrieve it. He digs it up and finds it ruined and useless. This passage is part of a stretch in Jeremiah where the prophet communicates through enacted signs and vivid actions rather than only spoken messages.
Jeremiah 13:1–7 presents an acted-out message. Yahweh gives Jeremiah a sequence of concrete instructions: buy a linen belt, wear it close to his body, keep it from water, then hide it at the Euphrates in a rock crevice. Jeremiah reports simple, repeated obedience.
A common mistake is to turn the wording into a slogan. The better reading keeps the phrase tied to the passage, the speaker, and the problem the book is addressing.
Start with Jeremiah 13:1-7, then read the surrounding section so the answer stays connected to the passage's flow.
1Thus says Yahweh to me, Go, and buy you a linen belt, and put it on your loins, and don`t put it in water.
2So I bought a belt according to the word of Yahweh, and put it on my loins.
3The word of Yahweh came to me the second time, saying,
4Take the belt that you have bought, which is on your loins, and arise, go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.
5So I went, and hid it by the Euphrates, as Yahweh commanded me.
6It happened after many days, that Yahweh said to me, Arise, go to the Euphrates, and take the belt from there, which I commanded you to hide there.
7Then I went to the Euphrates, and dug, and took the belt from the place where I had hid it; and, behold, the belt was marred, it was profitable for nothing.