¹⁵ For I am afraid that some of them have already gone astray and now follow Satan.

² Many will follow their evil teaching and shameful immorality. And because of these teachers, the way of truth will be slandered.

⁴ I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches, saying that God’s marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. The condemnation of such people was recorded long ago, for they have denied our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

⁵ So I want to remind you, though you already know these things, that Jesus^[a] first rescued the nation of Israel from Egypt, but later he destroyed those who did not remain faithful.

²⁰ And when people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they are worse off than before. ²¹ It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life. ²² They prove the truth of this proverb: “A dog returns to its vomit.”^[a] And another says, “A washed pig returns to the mud.”

¹⁹ These people left our churches, but they never really belonged with us; otherwise they would have stayed with us. When they left, it proved that they did not belong with us.