The Lord spoke about the Ammonites. ¹  “Do you think there are not any people of the nation of Israel remaining? Do you think there are not any of them remaining to reinherit their land? Is that why you people who worship the god Milcom ²  have taken possession of the territory of Gad and live in his cities? ³ 

But they answered, “We do not drink wine because our ancestor Jonadab son of Rechab commanded us not to. He told us, ‘You and your children must never drink wine.

Yes, ¹  the descendants of Jonadab son of Rechab have carried out the orders that their ancestor gave them. But you people ²  have not obeyed me!

They have built places here ¹  for worship of the god Baal so that they could sacrifice their children as burnt offerings to him in the fire. Such sacrifices ²  are something I never commanded them to make! They are something I never told them to do! Indeed, such a thing never even entered my mind!

Then I set cups and pitchers full of wine in front of the members of the Rechabite community and said to them, “Have some wine.” ¹ 

And I will smash them like wine bottles against one another, children and parents alike. ¹  I will not show any pity, mercy, or compassion. Nothing will keep me from destroying them,’ ²  says the Lord.”

I took them to the Lord’s temple. I took them into the room where the disciples of the prophet Hanan son of Igdaliah stayed. ¹  That room was next to the one where the temple officers stayed and above the room where Maaseiah son of Shallum, one of the doorkeepers ²  of the temple, stayed.

You plan great things and you do mighty deeds. ¹  You see everything people do. ²  You reward each of them for the way they live and for the things they do. ³ 

Jonadab son of Rechab ordered his descendants not to drink wine. His orders have been carried out. ¹  To this day his descendants have drunk no wine because they have obeyed what their ancestor commanded them. But I ²  have spoken to you over and over again, ³  but you have not obeyed me!

Come back to me, you wayward people. I want to cure your waywardness. ¹  Say, ²  ‘Here we are. We come to you because you are the Lord our God.

“A noise is heard on the hilltops. It is the sound of the people of Israel crying and pleading to their gods. Indeed they have followed sinful ways; ¹  they have forgotten to be true to the Lord their God. ² 

This will happen because the people of Israel and Judah have repeatedly done what displeases me ¹  from their earliest history until now ²  and because they ³  have repeatedly made me angry by the things they have done. ⁴  I, the Lord, affirm it! ⁵ 

Yet in days to come I will reverse Ammon’s ill fortune.” ¹  says the Lord. ² 

“I thought to myself, ¹  ‘Oh what a joy it would be for me to treat you like a son! ²  What a joy it would be for me to give ³  you a pleasant land, the most beautiful piece of property there is in all the world!’ ⁴  I thought you would call me, ‘Father’ ⁵  and would never cease being loyal to me. ⁶ 

The Lord says, “I have rejected them because ¹  the people of Judah have done what I consider evil. ²  They have set up their disgusting idols in the temple ³  which I have claimed for my own ⁴  and have defiled it.

But our tents have been destroyed. The ropes that held them in place have been ripped apart. ¹  Our children are gone and are not coming back. ²  There is no survivor to put our tents back up, no one left to hang their tent curtains in place.

Use it to send messages to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, ¹  and Sidon. ²  Send them through ³  the envoys who have come to Jerusalem ⁴  to King Zedekiah of Judah.

I am determined to do so because the people of Israel and Judah have made me angry with all their wickedness – they, their kings, their officials, their priests, their prophets, and especially the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem ¹  have done this wickedness. ² 

“All your wives and your children will be turned over to the Babylonians. ¹  You yourself will not escape from them but will be captured by the ²  king of Babylon. This city will be burned down.” ³ 

In the shadows of the walls of Heshbon those trying to escape will stand helpless. For a fire will burst forth from Heshbon. Flames will shoot out from the former territory of Sihon. They will burn the foreheads of the people of Moab, the skulls of those war-loving people. ¹