Christ Was Raised to Life

1 Corinthians 15 My friends, I want you to remember the message that I preached and that you believed and trusted. ²You will be saved by this message, if you hold firmly to it. But if you don't, your faith was all for nothing.
³I told you the most important part of the message exactly as it was told to me. That part is:
Christ died for our sins, as the Scriptures say.
⁴He was buried, and three days later
he was raised to life, as the Scriptures say.
⁵Christ appeared to Peter, then to the twelve.
⁶After this, he appeared
to more than five hundred other followers.
Most of them are still alive, but some have died.
⁷He also appeared to James,
and then to all of the apostles.
⁸Finally, he appeared to me, even though I am like someone who was born at the wrong time.
⁹I am the least important of all the apostles. In fact, I caused so much trouble for God's church that I don't even deserve to be called an apostle. ¹⁰But God was kind! He made me what I am, and his wonderful kindness wasn't wasted. I worked much harder than any of the other apostles, although it was really God's kindness at work and not me. ¹¹But it doesn't matter if I preached or if they preached. All of you believed the message just the same.

God's People Will Be Raised to Life

¹²If we preach that Christ was raised from death, how can some of you say that the dead will not be raised to life? ¹³If they won't be raised to life, Christ himself wasn't raised to life. ¹⁴And if Christ wasn't raised to life, our message is worthless, and so is your faith. ¹⁵If the dead won't be raised to life, we have told lies about God by saying that he raised Christ to life, when he really did not.
¹⁶So if the dead won't be raised to life, Christ wasn't raised to life. ¹⁷Unless Christ was raised to life, your faith is useless, and you are still living in your sins. ¹⁸And those people who died after putting their faith in him are completely lost. ¹⁹If our hope in Christ is good only for this life, we are worse off than anyone else.
²⁰But Christ has been raised to life! And he makes us certain that others will also be raised to life. ²¹Just as we will die because of Adam, we will be raised to life because of Christ. ²²Adam brought death to all of us, and Christ will bring life to all of us. ²³But we must each wait our turn. Christ was the first to be raised to life, and his people will be raised to life when he returns. ²⁴Then after Christ has destroyed all powers and forces, the end will come, and he will give the kingdom to God the Father.
²⁵Christ will rule until he puts all his enemies under his power, ²⁶and the last enemy he destroys will be death. ²⁷When the Scriptures say that he will put everything under his power, they don't include God. It was God who put everything under the power of Christ. ²⁸After everything is under the power of God's Son, he will put himself under the power of God, who put everything under his Son's power. Then God will mean everything to everyone.
²⁹If the dead are not going to be raised to life, what will people do who are being baptized for them? Why are they being baptized for those dead people? ³⁰And why do we always risk our lives ³¹and face death every day? The pride that I have in you because of Christ Jesus our Lord is what makes me say this. ³²What do you think I gained by fighting wild animals in Ephesus? If the dead are not raised to life,
"Let's eat and drink.
Tomorrow we die."
³³Don't fool yourselves. Bad friends will destroy you. ³⁴Be sensible and stop sinning. You should be embarrassed that some people still don't know about God.

Jehu Kills All of Ahab's Descendants

2 Kings 10 Ahab still had seventy descendants living in Samaria. So Jehu wrote a letter to each of the important leaders and officials of the town, and to those who supported Ahab. In the letters he wrote:

²Your town is strong, and you're protected by chariots and an armed cavalry. And I know that King Ahab's descendants live there with you. So as soon as you read this letter, ³choose the best person for the job and make him the next king. Then be prepared to defend Ahab's family.

⁴The officials and leaders read the letters and were very frightened. They said to each other, "Jehu has already killed King Joram and King Ahaziah! We have to do what he says." ⁵The prime minister, the mayor of the city, as well as the other leaders and Ahab's supporters, sent this answer to Jehu, "We are your servants, Your Majesty, and we will do whatever you tell us. But it's not our place to choose someone to be king. You do what you think is best."
⁶Jehu then wrote another letter which said, "If you are on my side and will obey me, then prove it. Bring me the heads of the descendants of Ahab! And be here in Jezreel by this time tomorrow."
The seventy descendants of King Ahab were living with some of the most important people of the city. ⁷And when these people read Jehu's second letter, they called together all seventy of Ahab's descendants. They killed them, put their heads in baskets, and sent them to Jezreel.
⁸When Jehu was told what had happened, he said, "Put the heads in two piles at the city gate, and leave them there until morning."
⁹The next morning, Jehu went out and stood where everyone could hear him, and he said, "You people are not guilty of anything. I'm the one who plotted against Joram and had him killed. But who killed all these men? ¹⁰Listen to me. Everything the LORD's servant Elijah promised about Ahab's family will come true."
¹¹Then Jehu killed the rest of Ahab's relatives living in Jezreel, as well as his highest officials, his priests, and his closest friends. No one in Ahab's family was left alive in Jezreel.
^12-13Jehu left for Samaria, and along the way, he met some relatives of King Ahaziah of Judah at a place where shepherds meet. He asked, "Who are you?"
"We are relatives of Ahaziah," they answered. "We're going to visit his family."
¹⁴"Take them alive!" Jehu said to his officers. So they grabbed them and led them to the well near the shepherds' meeting place, where they killed all forty-two of them.
¹⁵As Jehu went on, he saw Jehonadab son of Rechab coming to meet him. Jehu greeted him, then said, "Jehonadab, I'm on your side. Are you on mine?"
"Yes, I am."
"Then give me your hand," Jehu answered. He helped Jehonadab into his chariot ¹⁶and said, "Come with me and see how faithful I am to the LORD."
They rode together in Jehu's chariot ¹⁷to Samaria. Jehu killed everyone there who belonged to Ahab's family, as well as all his officials. Everyone in his family was now dead, just as the LORD had promised Elijah.

Jehu Kills All the Worshipers of Baal

¹⁸Jehu called together the people in Samaria and said:

King Ahab sometimes worshiped Baal, but I will be completely faithful to Baal. ¹⁹I'm going to offer a huge sacrifice to him. So invite his prophets and priests, and be sure everyone who worships him is there. Anyone who doesn't come will be killed.

But this was a trick--Jehu was really planning to kill the worshipers of Baal. ²⁰He said, "Announce a day of worship for Baal!" After the day had been announced, ²¹Jehu sent an invitation to everyone in Israel. All the worshipers of Baal came, and the temple was filled from one end to the other. ²²Jehu told the official in charge of the sacred robes to make sure that everyone had a robe to wear.
²³Jehu and Jehonadab went into the temple, and Jehu said to the crowd, "Look around and make sure that only the worshipers of Baal are here. No one who worships the LORD is allowed in." ²⁴Then they began to offer sacrifices to Baal.
Earlier, Jehu had ordered eighty soldiers to wait outside the temple. He had warned them, "I will get all these worshipers here, and if any of you let even one of them escape, you will be killed instead!"
²⁵As soon as Jehu finished offering the sacrifice, he told the guards and soldiers, "Come in and kill them! Don't let anyone escape." They slaughtered everyone in the crowd and threw the bodies outside. Then they went back into the temple ²⁶and carried out the image of Baal. They burned it ²⁷and broke it into pieces, then they completely destroyed Baal's temple. And since that time, it's been nothing but a public toilet.
²⁸That's how Jehu stopped the worship of Baal in Israel. ²⁹But he did not stop the worship of the gold statues of calves at Dan and Bethel that Jeroboam had made for the people to worship.
³⁰Later the LORD said, "Jehu, you have done right by destroying Ahab's entire family, just as I had planned. So I will make sure that the next four kings of Israel will come from your own family."
³¹But Jehu did not completely obey the commands of the LORD God of Israel. Instead, he kept doing the sinful things that Jeroboam had caused the Israelites to do.

Jehu Dies

³²In those days the LORD began to reduce the size of Israel's territory. King Hazael of Syria defeated the Israelites and took control ³³of the regions of Gilead and Bashan east of the Jordan River and north of the town of Aroer near the Arnon River. This was the land where the tribes of Gad, Reuben, and Manasseh had once lived.
³⁴Everything else Jehu did while he was king, including his brave deeds, is written in The History of the Kings of Israel. ³⁵Jehu died and was buried in Samaria, and his son Jehoahaz became king. ³⁶Jehu had ruled Israel twenty-eight years from Samaria.

MICAH

Micah 1 I am Micah from Moresheth. And this is the message about Samaria and Jerusalem that the LORD gave to me when Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah were the kings of Judah.

Judgment on Samaria

²Listen, all of you!
Earth and everything on it, pay close attention.
The LORD God accuses you from his holy temple.
³And he will come down to crush underfoot
every pagan altar.
⁴Mountains will melt beneath his feet
like wax beside a fire.
Valleys will vanish like water rushing down a ravine.
⁵This will happen because of the terrible sins of Israel,
the descendants of Jacob.
Samaria has led Israel to sin,
and pagan altars at Jerusalem have made Judah sin.

⁶So the LORD will leave Samaria in ruins--
merely an empty field where vineyards are planted.
He will scatter its stones and destroy its foundations.
⁷Samaria's idols will be smashed,
and the wages of temple prostitutes
will be destroyed by fire.
Silver and gold from those idols will then be used
by foreigners as payment for prostitutes.

Judah Is Doomed

⁸Because of this tragedy, I go barefoot and naked.
My crying and weeping sound like howling wolves
or ostriches.
⁹The nation is fatally wounded. Judah is doomed.
Jerusalem will fall.

¹⁰Don't tell it in Gath! Don't even cry.
Instead, roll in the dust at Beth-Leaphrah.
¹¹Depart naked and ashamed, you people of Shaphir.
The town of Bethezel mourns because no one from Zaanan
went out to help.
¹²Everyone in Maroth hoped for the best,
but the LORD sent disaster down on Jerusalem.

¹³Get the war chariots ready, you people of Lachish.
You led Jerusalem into sin, just as Israel did.
¹⁴Now you will have to give a going-away gift
to Moresheth.
Israel's kings will discover that they cannot trust
the town of Achzib.

¹⁵People of Mareshah, the LORD will send someone
to capture your town.
Then Israel's glorious king will be forced to hide
in Adullam Cave.
¹⁶Judah, shave your head as bald as a buzzard
and start mourning.
Your precious children will be dragged off
to a foreign country.