¹⁷ These people are springs without water, mists driven by a whirlwind. The gloom of darkness has been reserved for them.^{(A) 18} For by uttering boastful, empty words,^(B) they seduce, with fleshly desires and debauchery, people who have barely escaped^[a] from those who live in error. ¹⁹ They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption, since people are enslaved to whatever defeats them.^{(C) 20} For if, having escaped the world’s impurity through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,^(D) they are again entangled in these things and defeated, the last state is worse for them than the first.^{(E) 21} For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness^(F) than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy command^(G) delivered^(H) to them.^{(I) 22} It has happened to them according to the true proverb: A dog returns to its own vomit,^(J)[b] and, “a sow, after washing itself, wallows in the mud.”