So I went to Perath and dug up the shorts from the place where I had buried them. I found that they were ruined; they were good for nothing.

So I bought the shorts as the Lord had told me to do and put them on.

“Take the shorts that you bought and are wearing and go at once to Perath. Bury the shorts there in a crack in the rocks.”

Many days later the Lord said to me, “Go at once to Perath and get the shorts I ordered you to bury there.”

For,’ I say, ‘just as shorts cling tightly to a person’s body, so I bound the whole nation of Israel and the whole nation of Judah tightly to me.’ I intended for them to be my special people and to bring me fame, honor, and praise. But they would not obey me.