Jews often directed the demand for repentance to those fellow-Jews who tended to pursue un-Jewish ways of life or paid insufficient attention to God’s commandments. (Nevertheless it is wrong to assume that normal Jewish morality in general involved a strict but superficial observance of the Torah, without any serious moral dedication.)11 John’s preaching of repentance was addressed to the whole people. The individual was to abstain from his former way of life and to offer willing obedience to the