⁷ You are to destroy the house of Ahab your master, and I will avenge^(A) the blood of my servants^(B) the prophets and the blood of all the Lord’s servants shed by Jezebel.^(C)

²³ until the Lord removed them from his presence,^(A) as he had warned^(B) through all his servants the prophets. So the people of Israel were taken from their homeland^(C) into exile in Assyria, and they are still there.

¹⁷ “‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: You are the one I spoke of in former days by my servants the prophets of Israel. At that time they prophesied for years that I would bring you against them.

⁶ But did not my words^(A) and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, overtake your ancestors?^(B)

“Then they repented and said, ‘The Lord Almighty has done to us what our ways and practices deserve,^(C) just as he determined to do.’”^(D)

¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God;^(A) once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Living Godly Lives in a Pagan Society

¹¹ Dear friends,^(B) I urge you, as foreigners and exiles,^(C) to abstain from sinful desires,^(D) which wage war against your soul.^{(E) 12} Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds^(F) and glorify God^(G) on the day he visits us.