Captivity Threatened

“Therefore you are to speak this word to them. ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel says: “Every jug is to be filled with wine.”’ And when they say to you, ‘Do we not very well know that every jug is to be filled with wine?’

False Prophets Denounced

As for the prophets: My heart is broken within me, All my bones tremble; I have become like a drunken man, And like a man overcome by wine, Because of the Lord And because of His holy words.

For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to me: “Take this cup of the wine of wrath from My hand and give it to all the nations to whom I send you, to drink from it.

“They will come and shout for joy on the height of Zion, And they will be radiant over the bounty of the Lord— Over the grain, the new wine, the oil, And over the young of the flock and the herd. And their life will be like a watered garden, And they will never languish again.

“Go to the house of the Rechabites and speak to them, and bring them into the house of the Lord, into one of the chambers, and give them wine to drink.”

Then I set before the men of the house of the Rechabites pitchers full of wine, and cups; and I said to them, “Drink wine!”

But they said, “We will not drink wine, for Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, saying, ‘You shall not drink wine, you or your sons, forever.

And we have 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,

“The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab have been followed, which he commanded his sons: not to drink wine. And they do not drink wine to this day, for they have obeyed their father’s command. But I have spoken to you again and again, yet you have not listened to Me.

Now as for me, behold, I am going to stay in Mizpah to stand for you before the Chaldeans who come to us; but as for you, gather wine, summer fruit, and oil, and put them in your storage vessels, and live in your cities that you have taken over.”

Then all the Jews returned from all the places to which they had been scattered and came to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah at Mizpah, and gathered wine and summer fruit in great abundance.

“Moab has been at ease since his youth; He has also been peaceful, like wine on its dregs, And he has not been poured from vessel to vessel, Nor has he gone into exile. Therefore he retains his flavor, And his aroma has not changed.

So joy and rejoicing are removed From the fruitful field, and from the land of Moab. And I have eliminated the wine from the wine presses; No one will tread them with shouting, The shouting will not be shouts of joy.

Babylon has been a golden cup in the hand of the Lord, Intoxicating all the earth. The nations have drunk of her wine; Therefore the nations are going insane.