[“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You devour widows’ houses and make long prayers just for show. This is why you will receive a harsher punishment.]

It is necessary to silence them; they overthrow whole households by teaching what they shouldn’t in order to get money dishonestly.

For some men, who were designated for this judgment long ago, have come in by stealth; they are ungodly, turning the grace of our God into promiscuity and denying Jesus Christ, our only Master and Lord.

Laden

For my sins have flooded over my head;
they are a burden too heavy for me to bear.

Oh sinful nation,
people weighed down with iniquity,
brood of evildoers,
depraved children!
They have abandoned the Lord;
they have despised the Holy One of Israel;
they have turned their backs on Him.

“Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Led

You know that when you were pagans, you used to be led off to the idols that could not speak.

Therefore, dear friends, since you know this in advance, be on your guard, so that you are not led away by the error of lawless people and fall from your own stability.

Divers

but the worries of this age, the seduction

of wealth, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

But those who want to be rich fall into temptation, a trap, and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge people into ruin and destruction.

For we too were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved by various passions and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, detesting one another.

For by uttering boastful, empty words, they seduce, with fleshly desires and debauchery, people who have barely escaped from those who live in error.

These people are discontented grumblers, walking according to their desires; their mouths utter arrogant words, flattering people for their own advantage.

General references

They will never follow a stranger; instead they will run away from him, because they don’t recognize the voice of strangers.”