As the Lord used Ezekiel to prophesy of the doom coming upon God’s people, He showed just how much they would suffer, and how they would come to view that which they thought would bring them satisfaction in life,

“Those who survive will escape and be on the mountains
Like doves of the valleys,
All of them mourning,
Each for his iniquity.
Every hand will be feeble,
And every knee will be as weak as water.
They will also be girded with sackcloth;
Horror will cover them;
Shame will be on every face
Baldness on all their heads.
They will throw their silver into the streets,
And their gold will be like refuse;
Their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them
In the day of the wrath of the Lord;
They will not satisfy their souls,
Nor fill their stomachs,
Because it became their stumbling block of iniquity.”
(Ezekiel 7.16–19)

They would wear sackcloth and shame, and as they suffered the horrible humility of the Babylonian siege and captivity, the Jews would throw away their silver and their gold, realizing that they had lived for those things, but those things could not help in the day of trouble.