Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 13:7

"Then I went to the Euphrates, and digged, and took the girdle from the place where I had hid it; and, behold, the girdle was marred, it was profitable for nothing." — Jeremiah 13:7 (ASV)

The girdle was marred. —The symbolism is explained in Jeremiah 13:9. The girdle stained, decayed, worthless, was a parable of the state of Judah after the exile, stripped of all its outward greatness, losing the place which it had once occupied among the nations of the earth.