Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

SHIN

¹⁷ After this, the Lord gave a message to Elijah, the prophet from Tishbe. ¹⁸ He said to Elijah, ‘Go now to meet King Ahab of Israel who rules in Samaria. He is at Naboth's vineyard to take it as his own vineyard. ¹⁹ Say to Ahab, “This is what the Lord says to you: You have murdered a man. You have taken the dead man's field for yourself.” Then say to him, “This is what the Lord says: In the place where the dogs drank Naboth's blood from the ground, dogs will drink your blood. Yes, they will drink your blood there too!” ’

²⁰ When Elijah met Ahab, Ahab said to him, ‘So, my enemy, now you have found me!’ Elijah answered, ‘Yes, I have found you to warn you! You have decided to do things that the Lord says are evil. ²¹ So the Lord says, “Now I will bring great trouble on you. I will destroy you and your family. I will kill every male among Ahab's descendants in Israel, whoever they are. ²² I will destroy your family as I did to the family of Nebat's son Jeroboam and the family of Ahijah's son Baasha. I will do this because you have made me angry and you have caused Israel's people to do wrong things.” ²³ The Lord says this about Jezebel: “Dogs will eat Jezebel's dead body beside the city wall of Jezreel.”^{[a] 24} If people of Ahab's family die in the city, dogs will eat their bodies. If they die in the country, vultures will eat them.’

²⁵ Ahab had decided to do everything that the Lord said was evil. He was more wicked than any other person who had lived. His wife Jezebel helped him to be like that. ²⁶ Ahab was so wicked that he worshipped useless idols, as the Amorites did. The Lord had chased those people out of the land so that the Israelites could live there.

²⁷ When Ahab heard Elijah's message, he tore his clothes into pieces. He dressed himself in sackcloth and he did not eat any food. He even wore sackcloth when he slept on his bed. He walked slowly with a sad face.^[b]

²⁸ Then the Lord said to Elijah, ²⁹ ‘You have surely seen that Ahab now respects me. Because he has become humble, I will not destroy his family while he is alive. I will wait until his son rules as king. Then I will bring great trouble on Ahab's descendants.’

The Holy Spirit and false spirits

4 My friends, do not believe everyone who says that they speak God's message. There are many false prophets who are travelling around everywhere. They say that they have a message from God's Spirit, but the message comes from a false spirit. So check each message carefully to see if it is really from God.

² How do you know whether a person has God's Spirit in him? He must agree that Jesus is God's Messiah who was born as a human baby. If someone says that, then he has God's Spirit. ³ But if someone does not agree to say that about Jesus, he does not have God's Spirit. That person has a spirit that comes from the enemy of Christ. You have heard that this enemy of Christ would come among us. Now this spirit is already here in the world.

⁴ My little children, you belong to God. You have won against those people with a false message. You have been able to do that because God's Holy Spirit is in you. He is more powerful than the spirit that belongs to this world. ⁵ Those false prophets belong to this world. Their message comes from the ideas of people of this world. So the people of this world believe what they teach. ⁶ But we belong to God. Everyone who knows God believes our message. But anyone who does not belong to God does not believe it.

So that is how we know if someone's message comes from God's Spirit or not. God's Spirit brings us a true message, but false spirits tell lies.^[a]