The Obedience of the Rechabites

35 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the days of ^(A)Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: ² “Go to the house of the ^(B)Rechabites and speak with them and bring them to the house of the Lord, into one of ^(C)the chambers; then offer them wine to drink.” ³ So I took Jaazaniah the son of Jeremiah, son of Habazziniah and his brothers and all his sons and the whole house of the Rechabites. ⁴ I brought them to the house of the Lord into ^(D)the chamber of the sons of Hanan the son of Igdaliah, ^(E)the man of God, which was near ^(F)the chamber of the officials, above ^(G)the chamber of ^(H)Maaseiah the son of Shallum, ^(I)keeper of the threshold. ⁵ Then I set before the Rechabites pitchers full of wine, and cups, and I said to them, “Drink wine.” ⁶ But they answered, “We will drink no wine, for ^(J)Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, ‘You shall not drink wine, neither you nor your sons forever. ⁷ You shall not build a house; you shall not sow seed; you shall not plant or have a vineyard; but you shall live in tents all your days, ^(K)that you may live many days in the land where you sojourn.’ ⁸ We have obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, in all that he commanded us, to drink no wine all our days, ourselves, our wives, our sons, or our daughters, ⁹ and not to build houses to dwell in. We have no vineyard or field or seed, ¹⁰ but we have lived in tents and have obeyed and done all that Jonadab our father commanded us. ¹¹ But ^(L)when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against the land, we said, ‘Come, and let us go to Jerusalem for fear of ^(M)the army of the Chaldeans and ^(N)the army of the Syrians.’ ^(O)So we are living in Jerusalem.”