⁹ For thus I was commanded by the word of the Lord: ‘You shall not eat food, or drink water, or return by the way that you came.’ ”

Final Instructions

¹⁷ I urge you, brothers and sisters, to keep an eye on those who create dissensions and hindrances, in opposition to the teaching that you have learned; avoid them.^(A)

¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command you.^(A)

⁹ As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.^(A)

¹⁷ If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

²¹ and he cried out to the man of God who came from Judah, “Thus says the Lord: Because you have disobeyed the word of the Lord and have not kept the commandment that the Lord your God commanded you^{(A) 22} but have come back and have eaten food and drunk water in the place of which he said to you, ‘Eat no food, and drink no water,’ your body shall not come to your ancestral tomb.”

A Man of God from Judah

13 A man of God came out of Judah by the word of the Lord to Bethel, while Jeroboam was standing by the altar to offer incense.^(A)

²² And Samuel said,