English / ERV
Jeremiah 35
Easy-to-Read Version, 2006
- 1During the time when Jehoiakim, son of King Josiah, was king of Judah, the LORD spoke this message to Jeremiah:
- 2“Go to the Recabite family[1] and invite them to come to one of the side rooms of the LORD’s Temple. Offer them wine to drink.”
- 3So I went to get Jaazaniah[2] son of Jeremiah,[3] who was the son of Habazziniah. And I got all of Jaazaniah’s brothers and sons and the whole family of the Recabites together.
- 4Then I brought them into the Temple of the LORD. We went into the room of the sons of Hanan, the son of Igdaliah. Hanan was a man of God.[4] The room was next to the room where the princes of Judah stay. It was over the room of Maaseiah son of Shallum. Maaseiah was the doorkeeper in the Temple.
- 5Then I put some bowls full of wine and some cups in front of the Recabite family. And I said to them, “Drink some wine.”
- 6But the Recabite family answered, “We never drink wine. We never drink it because our ancestor Jonadab son of Recab gave us this command: ‘You and your descendants must never drink wine.
- 7Also you must never build houses, plant seeds, or plant vineyards. You must never do any of those things. You must live only in tents. If you do that, you will live a long time in the land where you move from place to place.’
- 8So we have obeyed everything our ancestor Jonadab commanded us. None of us ever drinks wine, and neither do our wives, sons, or daughters.
- 9We never build houses to live in, we never own vineyards or fields, and we never plant crops.
- 10We have lived in tents and have obeyed everything our ancestor Jonadab commanded us.
- 11But when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked the country of Judah, we did go into Jerusalem. We said to each other, ‘Come, we must enter the city of Jerusalem so that we can escape the Babylonian army and the Aramean army.’ So we have stayed in Jerusalem.”