Jonadab instructed him, “Lie down on your bed and pretend to be ill. When your father comes to see you, say to him, ‘Please allow Tamar, my sister, to come and prepare some food for me. She should make the food here, so that when I see it, I may eat it from her hand.’ ”
The young men who had grown up with him said, “So you should speak to the people who have spoken to you saying, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you lighten it from us.’ So you will say to them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist!
Therefore do not listen to your prophets, or to your diviners, or to your dreamers, or to your enchanters, or to your sorcerers who speak to you, saying, “You shall not serve the king of Babylon.”
so we may no longer be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about with every wind of teaching by the trickery of men, by craftiness with deceitful scheming.
I know your works, your labor and your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles, but are not, and have found them to be liars.