²⁶ Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first.”^(A)

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,

¹⁴ Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.”^(A)

¹² These are blots^[a] on your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, feeding themselves.^[b] They are waterless clouds carried along by the winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted;^{(A) 13} wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the deepest darkness has been reserved forever.^(B)

¹⁶ If you see your brother or sister committing what is not a deadly sin, you will ask, and God^[a] will give life to such a one—to those whose sin is not deadly. There is sin that is deadly; I do not say that you should pray about that.^(A)

²⁶ For if we willfully persist in sin after having received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins^{(A) 27} but a fearful prospect of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.^{(B) 28} Anyone who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy “on the testimony of two or three witnesses.”^{(C) 29} How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by those who have spurned the Son of God, profaned the blood of the covenant by which they were sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace?^{(D) 30} For we know the one who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.”^[a] And again, “The Lord will judge his people.”^{(E) 31} It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

¹⁵ Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell^[a] as yourselves.

⁴⁵ Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So will it be also with this evil generation.”^(A)