"Then the word of Yahweh came to me: “Thus says Yahweh: Even so will I spoil the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own heart and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing. For as the loincloth clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, declares Yahweh, that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory, but they would not listen." The first seven verses of this chapter relate the story of how Yahweh tells Jeremiah to buy a loincloth and wear it and then bury it in a hillside. Jeremiah is then instructed to retrieve it and, as expected, it is ruined. It's good for nothing. This is yet another picture that Yahweh gives to demonstrate the filth and putrition of Israel/Judah, and...