⁴ but sought ^[a]the God of his father, and walked in His commandments and not according to ^(A)the acts of Israel.

²⁸ Therefore the king asked advice, ^(A)made two calves of gold, and said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. ^(B)Here are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt!”

Plea for Purity

4 Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus ^(A)that you should abound more and more, ^(B)just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God;

^12 (A)that you would walk worthy of God ^(B)who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.

⁶ And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.

¹⁹ Also ^(A)Judah did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made.

¹⁸ And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, just as the house of Ahab had done, for ^(A)the daughter of Ahab was his wife; and he did evil in the sight of the Lord.

^7 (A)And I said, after she had done all these things, ‘Return to Me.’ But she did not return. And her treacherous ^(B)sister Judah saw it. ⁸ Then I saw that ^(C)for all the causes for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had ^(D)put her away and given her a certificate of divorce; ^(E)yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but went and played the harlot also.

³¹ And it came to pass, as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, ^(A)that he took as wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the ^(B)Sidonians; ^(C)and he went and served Baal and worshiped him. ³² Then he set up an altar for Baal in ^(D)the temple of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. ^33 (E)And Ahab made a ^[a]wooden image. Ahab ^(F)did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him.