⁷ You are to strike down the house of your master Ahab so that I may avenge the blood shed by the hand of Jezebel—the blood of My servants the prophets and of all the servants of the Lord.^(A)

²³ Finally, the Lord removed Israel from His presence just as He had declared through all His servants the prophets. So Israel has been exiled to Assyria from their homeland until today.^(A)

¹⁷ “This is what the Lord God says: Are you the one I spoke about in former times through My servants, the prophets of Israel, who for years prophesied in those times that I would bring you against them?

⁶ But didn’t My words and My statutes that I commanded My servants the prophets overtake your ancestors? They repented and said: As the Lord of Hosts purposed to deal with us for our ways and deeds, so He has dealt with us.”^(A)

A Call to Good Works

¹¹ Dear friends, I urge you as strangers and temporary residents^(B) to abstain^(C) from fleshly^(D) desires that war against you.^{[a](E) 12} Conduct^(F) yourselves honorably among the Gentiles,^[b] so that in a case where they speak against you as those who do what is evil, they will, by observing your good works, glorify God on the day of visitation.^[c](G)