The Rechabites’ Obedience

35 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the days of ^(A)Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying, ² “Go to the house of the ^(B)Rechabites and speak to them, and bring them into the house of the Lord, into one of the ^(C)chambers, and give them wine to drink.” ³ So I took Jaazaniah the son of Jeremiah, son of Habazziniah, and his brothers and all his sons, and all the household of the Rechabites, ⁴ and I brought them into the house of the Lord, into the chamber of the sons of Hanan the son of Igdaliah, the ^(D)man of God, which was next to the chamber of the officials, which was above the chamber of Maaseiah the son of Shallum, ^(E)the doorkeeper. ⁵ Then I set before the ^[a]men of the house of the Rechabites pitchers full of wine, and cups; and I said to them, “^(F)Drink wine!” ⁶ But they said, “We will not drink wine, for ^(G)Jonadab the son of ^(H)Rechab, our father, commanded us, saying, ‘You shall ^(I)not drink wine, you or your sons, forever. ⁷ You shall not build a house, and you shall not sow seed nor plant a vineyard, nor ^[b]own one; but you shall live in ^(J)tents all your days, so that you may live ^(K)many days ^[c]in the land where you ^(L)live as strangers.’ ⁸ And we have ^(M)obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, in all that he commanded us, not to drink wine all our days, we, our wives, our sons, or our daughters, ⁹ nor to build ourselves houses to live in; and we ^(N)do not have a vineyard, a field, or seed. ¹⁰ But we have ^(O)lived only in tents, and have obeyed and have done according to all that our father ^(P)Jonadab commanded us. ¹¹ However, when ^(Q)Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against the land, we said, ‘Come, and let’s ^(R)go to Jerusalem away from the army of the Chaldeans and the army of the Arameans.’ So we have lived in Jerusalem.”