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The Linen Loincloth

13Thus said the Lord to me, ‘Go and buy yourself a linen loincloth, and put it on your loins, but do not dip it in water.’ ²So I bought a loincloth according to the word of the Lord, and put it on my loins. ³And the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying, ⁴‘Take the loincloth that you bought and are wearing, and go now to the Euphrates,^* and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.’ ⁵So I went, and hid it by the Euphrates,^* as the Lord commanded me. ⁶And after many days the Lord said to me, ‘Go now to the Euphrates,^* and take from there the loincloth that I commanded you to hide there.’ ⁷Then I went to the Euphrates,^* and dug, and I took the loincloth from the place where I had hidden it. But now the loincloth was ruined; it was good for nothing.

8 Then the word of the Lord came to me: ⁹Thus says the Lord: Just so I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. ¹⁰This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own will and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing. ¹¹For as the loincloth clings to one’s loins, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the Lord, in order that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory. But they would not listen.

12 Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. ¹³No longer present your members to sin as instruments^* of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments^* of righteousness. ¹⁴For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Slaves of Righteousness

15 What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, ¹⁸and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. ¹⁹I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations.^* For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.

20 When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. ²¹So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. ²²But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. ²³For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

⁴⁷Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God.’

48 The Jews answered him, ‘Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?’ ⁴⁹Jesus answered, ‘I do not have a demon; but I honour my Father, and you dishonour me. ⁵⁰Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is one who seeks it and he is the judge. ⁵¹Very truly, I tell you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.’ ⁵²The Jews said to him, ‘Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, and so did the prophets; yet you say, “Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.” ⁵³Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets also died. Who do you claim to be?’ ⁵⁴Jesus answered, ‘If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, he of whom you say, “He is our God”, ⁵⁵though you do not know him. But I know him; if I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him and I keep his word. ⁵⁶Your ancestor Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day; he saw it and was glad.’ ⁵⁷Then the Jews said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’^{* 58}Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.’ ⁵⁹So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.