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.

¹⁰ Demas has deserted me because he loves the things of this life and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus has gone to Dalmatia.

²⁰ Hymenaeus and Alexander are two examples. I threw them out and handed them over to Satan so they might learn not to blaspheme God.

¹⁸ For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. ¹⁹ They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth.

⁹ This great dragon—the ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world—was thrown down to the earth with all his angels.

¹⁶ speaking of these things in all of his letters. Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture. And this will result in their destruction.