The Narrow and Wide Gates

¹³ “Enter through the narrow gate.^(A) For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.

²⁸ without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved—and that by God.

¹⁹ Their destiny^(A) is destruction, their god is their stomach,^(B) and their glory is in their shame.^(C) Their mind is set on earthly things.^(D)

³ Don’t let anyone deceive you^(A) in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion^(B) occurs and the man of lawlessness^[a] is revealed,^(C) the man doomed to destruction.

³⁹ But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.

³ In their greed^(A) these teachers will exploit you^(B) with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.

⁷ By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire,^(A) being kept for the day of judgment^(B) and destruction of the ungodly.

¹⁶ He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable^(A) people distort,^(B) as they do the other Scriptures,^(C) to their own destruction.

⁸ The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and yet will come up out of the Abyss^(A) and go to its destruction.^(B) The inhabitants of the earth^(C) whose names have not been written in the book of life^(D) from the creation of the world will be astonished^(E) when they see the beast, because it once was, now is not, and yet will come.