The Faithfulness of the Rechabites

35 The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, the king of Judah, saying,^{[a] 2} “Go to the house of the Rechabites, and speak with them, and bring them to the house of Yahweh into one of the chambers, and give them wine to drink.” ³ So I took Jaazaniah, the son of Jeremiah, the son of Habazziniah, and his brothers, and all his sons, and the whole of the house of the Rechabites, ⁴ and I brought them to the house of Yahweh, into the chamber of the sons of Hanan, the son of Igdaliah, the man of God, which was beside the chamber of the officials, which was above the chamber of Maaseiah, the son of Shallum, the keeper of the threshold.

⁵ Then I set^[b] before^[c] the house of the Rechabites bowls full of wine and cups, and I said to them, “Drink wine.” ⁶ But they answered, “We will not drink wine, for Jonadab, the son of Rechab, our ancestor,^[d] commanded us, saying,^[e] ‘You shall not drink wine, you or your children, forever.^{[f] 7} And you shall not build a house, and you shall not sow seed, and you shall not plant a vineyard, and it shall not be for you, but in tents you shall live all your days, so that you may live many days on the surface of the land where you are dwelling as aliens.’ ⁸ And we obeyed the voice of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, our ancestor,^[g] in all that he commanded us, not to drink wine all our days, ourselves, our wives, our sons, or our daughters, ⁹ and not to build houses for our living, and there is not vineyard, or field, or seed for us. ¹⁰ But we have lived in tents, and we have obeyed, and we have done all that Jehonadab, our ancestor,^[h] commanded us. ¹¹ But then^[i] at the coming up against the land of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, then we said, ‘Come and let us go to Jerusalem before^[j] the army of the Chaldeans, and before^[k] the army of the Arameans.’^[l] That is why we are living in Jerusalem.”