⁶² Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

¹³ Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind^(A) and straining toward what is ahead,

³⁸ And,

³¹ On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything.^{(A) 32} Remember Lot’s wife!^(B)

²⁰ If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing^(A) our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ^(B) and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.^{(C) 21} It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.^{(D) 22} Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,”^[a](E) and, “A sow that is washed returns to her wallowing in the mud.”

⁶ But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt,^(A) because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. ⁷ That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. ⁸ Such a person is double-minded^(B) and unstable^(C) in all they do.

¹⁰ for Demas,^(A) because he loved this world,^(B) has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica.^(C) Crescens has gone to Galatia,^(D) and Titus^(E) to Dalmatia.

³⁷ Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark,^(A) with them, ³⁸ but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them^(B) in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work.