¹⁷ These [false teachers] are springs without water and mists driven by a tempest, for whom is reserved the gloom of black darkness. ¹⁸ For uttering arrogant words of vanity [pompous words disguised to sound scholarly or profound, but meaning nothing and containing no spiritual truth], they beguile and lure using lustful desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error. ¹⁹ They promise them liberty, when they themselves are the slaves of depravity—for by whatever anyone is defeated and overcome, to that [person, thing, philosophy, or concept] he is continually enslaved. ²⁰ For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world by [personal] knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, their last condition has become worse for them than the first. ²¹ For it would have been better for them not to have [personally] known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to have turned back from the holy commandment [verbally] handed on to them. ²² The thing spoken of in the true proverb has happened to them, “The dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “A sow is washed only to wallow [again] in the mire.”^(A)