²⁰ For if after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. ²¹ For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to have known it and then turn back from the holy commandment that was delivered to them. ²² But it has happened to them according to the true proverb, “The dog returns to his own vomit,”^[a] and “the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mud.”