Leather

Leather or skin has barrier properties to contain liquid, if it still has enough "life" in it. Put any living human or mammal in water and the water cannot seep through. The skin may wrinkle, but as long as life sustains it, water does not penetrate.

The skin of dead mammals, i.e. leather, can deal with liquid up to a point, but sooner or later water will seep through.

As a follower of Jesus, my living in the will of God is what sustains me and protects me from the influences of the world - like the life that sustains the skin to prevent water from seeping into the body.

I need to continually renew and strengthen my faith, daily, to keep my "skin" alive and protective.

"And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new [fermenting] wine will [expand and] burst the skins and it will be spilled out, and the skins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins."

~ Luke 5.37-38 AMP