¹⁵ For some have already turned away to follow Satan.

² Even so, many will follow their debaucheries, and because of these teachers^[a] the way of truth will be maligned.

⁴ For certain intruders have stolen in among you, people who long ago were designated for this condemnation as ungodly, who pervert the grace of our God into debauchery and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.^[a](A)

Judgment on False Teachers

⁵ Now I desire to remind you, though you are fully informed, once and for all, that Jesus, who saved^[b] a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.^(B)

²⁰ For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of the^[a] Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first.^{(A) 21} For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment that was handed on to them.^{(B) 22} It has happened to them according to the true proverb,

and,

¹⁹ They went out from us, but they did not belong to us, for if they had belonged to us they would have remained^[a] with us. But by going out they made it plain that none of them belongs to us.^(A)

¹⁰ for Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens has gone to Galatia,^[a] Titus to Dalmatia.^(A)

²⁰ among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have turned over to Satan, so that they may be taught not to blaspheme.^(A)

¹⁸ For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears.^{(A) 19} Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.^(B)

⁹ The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.^(A)

¹⁶ speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist^[a] to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures.