¹³ These people are false apostles. They are deceitful workers who disguise themselves as apostles of Christ.

² Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved.

⁷ but is not the Good News at all. You are being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ.

Discerning False Prophets

4 Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world.

⁴ Even that question came up only because of some so-called believers there—false ones, really^[a]—who were secretly brought in. They sneaked in to spy on us and take away the freedom we have in Christ Jesus. They wanted to enslave us and force us to follow their Jewish regulations.

³⁰ Even some men from your own group will rise up and distort the truth in order to draw a following.

²⁰ And the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who did mighty miracles on behalf of the beast—miracles that deceived all who had accepted the mark of the beast and who worshiped his statue. Both the beast and his false prophet were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur.

⁸ Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers^[a] of this world, rather than from Christ.

⁴ I am telling you this so no one will deceive you with well-crafted arguments.