Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

¹⁷ These are wells without water, and clouds carried about by a tempest, for whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever. ¹⁸ For when they have spoken the swelling words of vanity, they beguile with wantonness through the lusts of the flesh those who were clean escaped, but now are wrapped in errors. ¹⁹ They promise them liberty, and are themselves the bond-servants of corruption. For by whomever a person is overcome, to him he is in bondage.

²⁰ For if, after they have escaped from the corruption of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and of the Saviour Jesus Christ, they are yet tangled again in it and overcome, then is the latter end worse with them than the beginning. ²¹ For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment given to them. ²² It has happened to them according to the true proverb: The dog is turned to his vomit again, and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire.