³⁸ And,

¹² These people are blemishes at your love feasts,^(A) eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves.^(B) They are clouds without rain,^(C) blown along by the wind;^(D) autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted^(E)—twice dead.

¹⁹ They went out from us,^(A) but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.^(B)

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.^{(A) 22} Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,”^[a](B) and, “A sow that is washed returns to her wallowing in the mud.”

²⁶ If we deliberately keep on sinning^(A) after we have received the knowledge of the truth,^(B) no sacrifice for sins is left, ²⁷ but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire^(C) that will consume the enemies of God.

Made Alive in Christ

2 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,^(A)